


Perchance to Wake

by Akumeoi



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Boys Kissing, Caretaking, Chronic Illness, Coma, Developing Relationship, Disability, Dreams, Everybody Lives, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Fugitives, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Physical Disability, Post-War, Prompto Argentum Needs a Hug, Recovery, Reunions, Road Trips, Terminal Illnesses, doctor!Ignis, gods aren't dicks, magical healing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-01 19:28:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 40,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13301655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akumeoi/pseuds/Akumeoi
Summary: At the end of the Lucis/Niflheim war, Prince Noctis was captured and taken to Zegnautus Keep as a subject for Verstael Besithia's research. There, he was put into an indefinite coma and left under the care of Verstael's least-loved son, Prompto. As Noctis slept, an unconventional friendship between him and Prompto grew, aided by the dream cell phone provided to Noctis by Carbuncle. Then, on the day that Prompto found out his chronic illness was relapsing and would probably kill him, Noctis woke up. The two of them were forced to run for their lives, until another dream from Bahamut sent Noctis and five other Blessed humans on a troublingly vague quest to reclaim the Lucian throne. Only their love and their bonds with their friends can ease their way.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Eternal gratitude to to [nvr5getti](https://nvr5getti.tumblr.com/) for the beta. Thanks to all my other friends who encouraged me to write, edit, and pick a damn title for this thing, already. ♥♥♥

There was a desert in the Citadel. Fine waves of sand stretched down the hallway as far as the eye could see, and the air shimmered with heat. The furniture remained, wood varnish bubbling and splitting, upholstery bursting at the seams and covered in sand. In certain rooms, tall date palms, lone acacias with their feathery canopies, and green Myrtle trees took the place of stone columns or simply grew from the sand. Purple oleander flowers, ficuses, and low-growing tamarixes dotted the ground. Small herds of gazelles and even lone oryxes roamed, as tiny mice flitted here and there, hunted by foxes and jackals. 

The throne room was an oasis, featuring a shallow blue pool in the centre of the polished black marble floor where an audience would gather, were there any human residents of the Citadel. Emerging from between the legs of the throne was the spring that fed the pool, cascading down the steps of the dias. Behind the throne, the Crystal glowed, purple and vibrant. 

Noctis was standing knee-deep in the oasis, and the water was spilling into his boots. He did not look pleased.

“The fuck is it?” he was muttering, visibly sweating from the heat. “I know it’s here somewhere.”

Little wavelets appeared as Noctis waded through the pool, kicking his feet around. Finally, he slipped and nearly fell over the thing he had been looking for - a domed bronze disk around as big as a manhole cover, set into the silt beneath the oasis. This one had a nullification symbol - an O with a slash through it - carved into its face. 

“Thank the gods,” Noctis said, planting both feet firmly in the centre of the disk. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a ring lit up white around the edge of the metal disk, as did the symbol in the centre. 

The desert vanished.

As the air instantly started cooling down, the sweat dried on Noctis’s face. He lifted the tails of his jacket and began flapping them around to let some air in underneath it. The water in his boots and on the hems of his pants rapidly dried, much to his relief. 

From up on the throne, a small blue fennec fox with a spiral ruby horn set into its forehead seemed to be grinning at him. 

“Are you making fun of me?” Noctis said aloud to Carbuncle. The phone in his pocket chimed, and he pulled it out to read Carbuncle’s reply. 

It was a heart, followed by a line of text which read, “Of course not! I am happy that you turned everything back to normal!” 

Carbuncle got to his little feet, then hopped down from the throne and descended the stairs towards Noctis, who was stepping off the plate with an air of relief. The two of them left the throne room together and emerged back into the now thankfully sand-free hallway. There was a disk in the doorway that Noctis couldn’t avoid stepping on, but it only spawned five Salpinxes - green imps whose tiny bald heads came up to Noctis’s mid-thigh at best. He’d killed so many of these that he didn’t even have to think as his engine blade whirled through the air, decapitating one, eviscerating another, and slicing through the rest. When all five were dead, their blood and corpses faded away as if they had never been, but Noctis was already walking away.

Now Noctis and Carbuncle made their way through the Citadel, testing disks with various symbols inscribed on them, with various results - changing night to day, making invisible doors appear, shrinking Noctis down small and then making him big again. They had searched the east wing before entering the throne room in the desert, and were now making their way through the west. Finally, they found themselves in the royal portrait gallery, a long, mostly bare room covered in double rows of gold-framed paintings on both walls. The ground was black marble, as with the rest of the Citadel, but down the middle of the room ran a long, thick carpet, patterned with a night sky in white and silver thread. Black leather sofas lined the centre of the room, as in a museum. 

“Hey guys,” Noctis said to the portraits as he entered. The door behind him gave an unnatural click, and he turned to find that it had melted into the wall and disappeared. 

“Dammit,” Noctis sighed, resisting the urge to bang his head against the door in frustration. His phone chirped, and he read Carbuncle’s latest message: “I can sense two disks inside this room. I’m sure one can take us to the exit!”

The exit. Noctis knew that Carbuncle meant the exit to this room, but what he was really looking for was an exit to the Citadel itself. Outside the Citadel, another disk would be waiting for him - one he could use to go to his safe place, the Regalia. If he could only get there, he’d be able to wake up. 

Noctis thanked Carbuncle for his advice, then lapped the room once. There was one disk set into the ground at the far end, where the newest portraits hung and the room gave way to a wide, multi-paned window, where a shaft of sunlight painted the floor. Noctis paused there for a moment, enjoying the warmth. The disk had a suspicious, tree-shaped symbol inscribed on it that he didn’t like the looks of. No undo button nearby. But he knew the second disk wouldn’t be under the carpet or anything - they were always hidden in plain sight. 

Turning to the wall beside him, Noctis began examining the portraits. The one second from the end was that of his father, King Regis, and it was there that his eye was drawn first. 

Regis Lucis Caelum, 113th of his line, 7th of his name, smiled fondly down at Noctis from his portrait. Noctis hadn’t seen his dad since the day Insomnia had fallen - the last official day of the Lucis/Niflheim war. That day, Noctis and his Crownsguard had joined the Kingsglaive in a desperate attempt to defend the city, as the old wall came alive and buildings crumbled around them in fire and ruin. When it became clear that the battle was impossible to win, Noctis and his men had escaped the city to become a small guerrilla force roaming the countryside, lying low except for the occasional espionage, sabotage, or rescue mission. 

One by one, Noctis’s comrades were captured or killed by Imperial forces. Noctis could not stand to be the reason for so many deaths. Finally, he had slipped away in the night, accompanied only by his faithful shield, Gladiolus Amicitia, and given himself up to General Caligo Uldor.

From there he had been taken to Zegnautus Keep, where he was given over to Verstael Besithia as a test subject and kept in abject conditions. Gladio remained in Lucis for public execution. A year and several escape attempts later, Noctis was put into a medically-induced sleep. Noctis had been dreaming ever since. How long it had been, he didn’t know. 

He didn’t think he deserved Regis’s gentle smile. 

“Father…” he said, voice small, wishing the portrait could speak to him. When it remained silent, as paintings do, Noctis did another sweep of the room, examining all of the portraits more closely. None of them held any clues. Back at the end of the room with the portrait of Regis and the window, he decided to just try the disk marked with a tree and see what happened. 

Of course, as soon as he stepped on it, a small forest of young oak trees grew out of the ground. The light turned green and warm, and birds chirped overhead. 

“Godsdamnit!” Noctis cursed, sitting down on one of the sofas in a huff. There was a tree growing out of the seat next to him, splitting the leather to show the yellow foam inside of the cushions. Carbuncle, concerned, curled up in Noctis’s lap, and his phone chimed. Absently, Noctis rested a hand on Carbuncle’s back as he pulled out his phone again. 

“Why don’t you take a rest?” the message read. Noctis sighed. 

For a moment, he did nothing but pet Carbuncle and stare up at the ceiling, where gentle shadows swayed. The phone lay loosely in his hand, beside him on the sofa. The dark circles under his eyes somehow seemed to grow more pronounced.

It shouldn’t be possible for someone who spent their whole life asleep to look this exhausted, but Noctis did. He was tired of wandering the Citadel alone. He was tired of pointlessly fighting demons that weren’t even real. He was tired of looking for plates in the ground that never did anything other than disappoint him. The whimsy and the mystery of the dream had worn off long ago.

Picking up the phone again, he just stared at it before pulling himself together and flicking from Carbuncle’s chat to the one beside it, which was labelled “Prompto”. That was the name of a technician in Besithia’s lab in Zegnautus Keep. Noctis did not know how or why, but everything Prompto said to him would show up on his phone, the same way that he could read Carbuncle’s messages. Sometimes, Noctis even wrote back. Prompto had some kind of device on his end, too, that allowed him to understand Noctis - vaguely. In the beginning, Prompto had spent a lot of time guessing what Noctis was trying to say until he got it or one of them gave up. This still happened from time to time, but by now Prompto had a good grasp of how to interpret Noctis’s intentions, and Noctis knew his limits when it came to what he could convey. At least Noctis could always communicate “yes” and “no” whenever he wanted.

Aside from the messages from Prompto, Noctis also received messages on his phone from anyone else who was in earshot of his physical body, but he tended to ignore those completely. The only ones that really mattered were Prompto’s.

There were no new messages from today, but the ones from this morning were still there. Noctis had not said much because he had been busy solving a puzzle at the time, and multitasking while talking to Prompto tended to make it hard for Prompto to understand him.

 **Prompto:** Hey Noct, what’s up?  
**Noctis:** Hi Prompto  
**Prompto:** I brought you breakfast. Of course, it’s the same as usual, haha. Sorry about that. Hope it tastes good.  
**Prompto:** Your hair’s getting really long. Wish I could cut it. So you’ll look nice for the ladies. Or for the gentlefolk.  
**Prompto:** Dude, I gotta tell you about this crazy thing I saw on TV last night. Apparently baby catoblepas are like tadpoles, isn’t that crazy? They get so big after! Oh, and people used to think that they keep their heads down all the time because they’re so heavy, and their eyes could turn people to stone. That’s just a myth, though. I mean, their heads are heavy, but not to the catoblepas. They’re just looking for food in the marshes they live in. Catoblepas are very peaceful, unless they’re attacked.  
**Prompto:** Man… I sure would love to see one. Maybe I’ll go to Lucis someday. You should come with me, buddy. We could do a photoshoot with the catoblepas. There’s this special kind of mushroom they like that we can use to attract them. You could help me collect the mushrooms, even if you don’t want to be in the photo.  
**Prompto:** I hope you want to be in the photo, though.  
**Noctis:** Sure you can take my picture. Just don’t make me look bad  
**Prompto:** Ooh, you heard me, huh? Well, is it a yes or a no? You sure are a mysterious guy, Noct. It’s part of your charm.  
**Prompto:** Well, that’s it! I can’t believe we’re done already. I gotta go, but I’m gonna look up more catoblepas facts on my phone so I can tell them to you later.  
**Prompto:** Bye, Noct! Sleep well!

As Noctis read, he began to crack a smile. Prompto just had this way about him - he didn’t even question if there were a potential future where Noctis would need to appeal to the ladies and the gentlefolk, or where they could take photos of a catoblepas together. Noctis loved him for it. Maybe Prompto wasn’t as great as he seemed - but gods if he wasn’t the only thing Noctis had waiting for him on the outside. 

The only thing that reminded him there _was_ an outside. 

Closing his eyes, Noctis tried to imagine what taking photos of a catoblepas with Prompto would be like. It was hard, since he didn’t know what Prompto looked like, how he moved and spoke. But he had seen a catoblepas before, once, when camping at a nearby haven. He’d never before thought of them as anything part of the scenery.

Feeling better now, Noctis got up and started searching the room again. Stepping on the forest disk that had caused the room to change in the first place did make the trees go away, but the sofas were still destroyed. 

“Did you check your portrait?” Carbuncle messaged him. The fox himself was still sitting on the sofa where Noctis had left him a little while ago.

“Kinda?” Noctis replied aloud, realising he’d accidentally skipped his own portrait and gone straight to his dad’s on the first go-around. In the real world, he had never had a portrait in the portrait hall. 

There were some weird things about the portrait in his dream. It had a bunch of symbols of Bahamut in it, like a fan of swords on the wall; but that was normal, because Bahamut was Noctis’s patron god and used to talk to him in dreams, back during the war. No, what was weird about it was that it contained several other unrelated figures, when royals were normally painted solo in their official portraits. At Noctis’s left was Lunafreya Nox Fleuret and her Shield Aranea Highwind, both of whom had faked their deaths to survive the war. On his right was Gladio, who Noctis could not even look at, and his sister Iris. There were three other figures in the background, all with varying shades of blond hair, all facing away from the viewer, so he couldn’t see who they were. It was weird, maybe even a little bit ominous. 

Painted Noctis’s eyes were closed, unlike the eyes of all the other regents in the portrait gallery. But when real Noctis approached, they snapped open. Noctis instantly jumped back, startled. He watched the portrait warily, hand ready to summon a weapon at a moment’s notice. Painted Noctis, his movements jerky as if he had a low frame rate, pointed behind him. Then, real Noctis saw it, in the background of the painting - the missing disk. It had a door symbol on it. 

For a moment, Noctis stared at the painting, eyes flicking up and down. He reached out a hand to touch it, and painted Noctis mirrored him. Closer and closer, the two dreams collided. When their fingers touched, the world shifted and blurred, and Noctis felt like he was falling forward into the painting. But when everything stopped spinning, the disk with the door was on the ground behind him. Painted Noctis had a smug expression on his face, but he didn’t move again, even though real Noctis kept a watch on him from the corner of his eye. 

Real Noctis stepped onto the disk. At first, it seemed like nothing had happened. Then, he heard a deep, resonant wave of sound, the simultaneous unlatching of a thousand doors, as every lock in the Citadel had suddenly gave way at once. 

“Come on,” Noctis said urgently to Carbuncle, not knowing if the effect was timed. They sprinted through the empty halls of the Citadel, not to the elevators, which followed strange rules, but to the stairs. They were 20 floors up, so Noctis warped from stair to stair in a zig-zag pattern. 

_Go, go, go,_ he was screaming to himself in his brain. He felt the impact of every landing shaking him to his bones, even as the moments between each warp blurred in his haste. At the bottom of the stairs he threw the door open so hard it slammed against the wall, and swung wildly on its hinges as Noctis sprinted to the main hall. 

Breathing heavily, Noctis tested the doors. When he found them unlocked, he threw them open all in a rush, forcing his way outside onto the landing. 

Standing at the top of thirty five red-carpeted stairs, Noctis could see the final disk that he’d have to stand on to summon the Regalia. It gleamed in the sunlight at the other end of the plaza, tantalisingly close. The last two times he’d gotten here, a god-sized enemy had appeared, picked him up, and thrown him back into the Citadel. Noctis glanced wildly from right to left, body tense for any sign of attack. But this time - this time - the way remained clear. 

Noctis didn’t believe this could be real, but he couldn’t stop, he couldn’t think. Forcing himself into motion, he ran for his life, leaving Carbuncle behind. Down the steps of the Citadel; then his feet hit the asphalt and he was flying across the still-empty plaza. His veins were flowing with adrenaline, his heartbeat pulsing through his body, _beat, beat,_ like thunder in his blood, while his thoughts whirled with panic and motion. Noctis dove for the disk, sliding into it like a baseball player going for a home run. His skin tore and began bleeding from the asphalt, but Noctis didn’t even feel it.

No enemy had appeared. Noctis was on the disk, and it was glowing white, now. The sun began to turn in the sky. From the east it rose, banishing the shadows that covered the plaza. Noctis heard a strange beeping, close to his body, and then, a voice started speaking to him, fading in and out as if heard through a faulty telephone receiver.

“…don’t know if you remember… you know, I wasn’t really… a good damn idea to… magic, which, hello? I’m not the Oracle or anything… Sorry. Sorry… I’ll just tell you…”

He couldn’t make sense of it, couldn't understand. But he could feel and hear his phone vibrating with notifications from the depths of his pocket. _Prompto? Is that Prompto’s voice?_ Noctis wondered.

As the sun reached its zenith, whiting out the whole sky, Noctis thought he heard shouting. “…they might kill you. FUCK! Fuck, fucking, damnit! I fucking WISH YOU WERE LISTENING. I WISH-”

And then evening came and the Regalia appeared - glossy black, shining in the reflected glow of the sunset: orange, pink, and gold. 

Noctis, trembling, reached for the exit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Disclaimers:** I have not tried to accurately represent a real illness in this fic. All illness and disabilities are based on 1. my CFS symptoms, 2. a minimal degree of research by me, 3. my imagination. If you find any gross inaccuracies, however, feel free to point them out. 
> 
> **Warnings:** This fic does deal with serious themes. I will attempt to warn accordingly at the beginning of each chapter. But I promise, the ending is joyous ♥
> 
> I'll try and update once every two weeks. Fic was already written as an accidental NaNoWriMo in October/November of 2017, but the editing's a bitch. I've already had to rewrite scenes in both chapters one and two. Wish me luck!
> 
> \--  
> Notes specifically for this chapter:  
> 1\. The desert in the beginning is based on what Wikipedia calls "Tibesti-Jebel Uweinat montane xeric woodlands". Sounds like a lovely place. I've never been :D  
> 2\. Prompto is using “gentlefolk” as a stand-in for "guys, gals, and nonbinary pals." You will see me attempt to sneak in other such inclusive language through the rest of the fic. _Sneaky, sneaky._
> 
> \--  
> Comments always welcome!


	2. When Dreams Collide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** Please hover over this text for chapter warnings (contains spoilers) **

A cold metal door clicked shut. 

Tucked away in the shadowy halls of Zegnautus Keep, Noctis lay sleeping, surrounded by bright, quietly beeping monitors, and attached via needles and tape to wires and tubes. His head was crowned with a sleek silver helmet, attached to a display showing a cross-section of his brain, lit up in various neon colours. Noctis did not stir when the door closed, which was unsurprising given that he had been in a coma for three years now.

The one who had just entered the room bent to wash his hands in the cold water of the sink built into the wall to the right of the door. The white fluorescent lights beat down, illuminating every sterile nook and cranny. Normally, Prompto would give a cheerful greeting, or even just a soft, “ _Hey, Noct_ ”. But today, he didn’t say anything at all. 

Prompto Besithia, wishfully Argentum, had lived at Zegnautus Keep his entire life. Although bred to be a future MT, he had had the fortune to become part of a group of test subjects whom Verstael Besithia had singled out in the hopes that they’d be more special - more like him: Prompto. Loqi. Pernicitas. Phaedes. Fortitudo. Viribus. Helixion. Once, Prompto had hoped to become a hardware engineer, as Besithia the elder had originally been. All the other available jobs in Zegnautus Keep were hateful to Prompto. He had no interest in growing clones, cultivating demons, or performing genetic testing on hapless civilians. And besides, he had shown promise as an engineer, and a few of his projects had even been adapted by Besithia and his technicians for use in the Zegnautus laboratories.

But after the fall of Insomnia and Noctis’s arrival to the Keep, Besithia had gone a bit mad with excitement over the possibility of testing the blood of a Lucis Caelum, one of the only people in the world genetically able to use Astral magic. After successfully isolating some of the prince’s magic affiliated genes through intense experimentation, he had decided to chose one of his “sons” as a test recipient for this DNA.

The lucky winner had been Prompto, who, knowing the procedure was risky, had tried to get him to chose someone else. Besithia had only said that Prompto’s engineering work wasn’t that good, and genetics would ultimately bring more glory to the Empire. 

Prompto didn’t give a rat’s ass about the Empire. 

After Prompto had been injected multiple times with Noctis’s DNA, he had fallen swiftly, cripplingly ill. Six months of recovery later, he could barely eat unaided. Besithia, of course, had just written the whole thing off as a failed experiment, then had the audacity to demand that Prompto return to work again immediately. And Prompto had had no choice, because the other option was to be recommissioned, a fate which Prompto wanted to avoid at all costs. It was around the time that Prompto went into remission that Noctis was put into an indefinite coma. Prompto had actually volunteered to be Noctis’s caretaker. Besithia had scoffed, but nobody else wanted to take care of a comatose body, save for the night shift, who had no choice. Noctis was the only subject in the entire Keep valuable enough to be kept alive, yet too dangerous to keep awake. The prince was too wild, had made too many desperate bids for freedom - in whatever form he could get it. Now he was nothing more than a living, breathing tissue donor.

Gradually, Prompto had begun to feel bad for the sleeping prince. All alone, in this miserable place, unable to communicate with the outside world, though Prompto could see from the fMRI helmet monitor that Noctis was certainly not braindead. Prompto had to visit him daily, to feed him, bathe him, empty his urinary catheter, roll him over so he didn’t get bed sores, massage him so his muscles wouldn’t completely waste away, and take care of him constantly in various other little ways. That was a lot of time to spend in one person’s company without ever saying a word to them, Prompto felt. And it wasn’t like he had anyone else to talk to.

But today, he came straight over to the bed and sat down at the foot of it without saying a single word. 

Then, he hunched over and put his head in his hands. 

A few long moments passed, completely in silence, until Prompto shifted his posture, crossing his arms over his chest, shivering slightly. His face twisted as he bit his lip and scowled hard, trying to blink back tears. 

Finally, he spoke. 

“I got some news today, Noct,” Prompto said, and his voice was choked, breathless with impending tears. He took a deep breath. “It’s - it’s bad.”

A few more deep breaths, and Prompto was pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes, then looking wistfully at the sleeves of his lab coat as if wishing he could wipe his face with them. But then, that wouldn’t be very sanitary, and he was always mindful of protecting Noctis from infections. With a sigh, Prompto got up and grabbed a handful of paper towels from the sink, then came and sat down on the bed in front of the comatose Noctis again. 

“I don’t know if you remember,” Prompto began, now in slightly more possession of himself. “Back when I first met you, you know, I wasn’t really doing so well. ‘Cause _Dad_ -” here Prompto’s voice was venomous “-thought it would be a good damn idea to stick your DNA in me so I could learn to do magic, which, hello? I’m not the Oracle or anything, but even I know you probably shouldn’t fuck around with other people’s gods.” Prompto sighed. “Sorry. Sorry, Noct. I know I’m rambling. I’ll tell you, I’ll just tell you.” 

He sniffed, raised the hand that had the paper towels in it as if he were about to say something else, and then just gave up and let it drop limply back into his lap. 

“It’s happening again.”

A ragged sob was torn from his throat. Prompto started trembling again, shoving the paper towels into his pockets and just pressing his face into his sleeves with abandon. Every so often he would glance at the fMRI read-out on the monitor. The monitor was there as part of the failsafe system to keep Noctis asleep, but Prompto used it as a communication device - Prompto would talk, and different parts of Noctis’s brain would light up in response, allowing Prompto to guess what Noctis was thinking. If Noctis were listening now, if he were giving Prompto the slightest amount of concern or sympathy, there should’ve been activation in his right temporo-parietal junction. At the very least, his Broca’s area should have been activating as he processed Prompto’s speech. 

But those areas were completely dark. Noctis wasn’t listening, to Prompto or to anyone.

“I can feel it,” Prompto cried, sobbing openly now, knowing his tears were unheard but unable to stop himself. The words spilt from his throat like a bile he had to purge or risk being choked on. “I - I thought I would never have to do this again. Fuck, I got the labs back today, they found elemental energy in my bloodstream, and they say - they say -”

Here, it became hard for Prompto to speak because he was crying so hard. Between sobs, he began gasping for breath, trying to force out a sentence, a word, _anything_ , his face creased into lines of pure and utter misery. Glancing at the monitor, Prompto saw that it still showed Noctis wasn’t paying him any attention. 

“I GONNA _DIE_ , NOCT!” he bellowed, forcing out the words. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I don’t know what you’ll do without me - they might kill you. FUCK!” Prompto burst from the bed, throwing the paper towels to the floor so that they landed with a wet slap. “Fuck, fucking, damnit!” He rounded on Noctis again, scowling straight at his face. “I fucking WISH YOU WERE LISTENING. I WISH YOU WEREN’T FUCKING COMATOSE, DAMN YOU!” 

And then Prompto gave up and just cried miserably, sinking down to his knees on the ground beside the bed, weeping and weeping until he had no more tears left to shed.

As his sobs subsided, Prompto stood. He gathered the paper towels he’d thrown earlier, tossing them into the nearby trash can. The sleeves of his coat - as well as most of the front of the coat - were a disgusting mess of tears and snot because he’d kept wiping his face on them. Cheeks still pink and blotchy, streaked with tears and a few still silently slipping out, he left the room - returning only moments later wearing another, clean coat. Accidentally, he left the door ajar this time. As Prompto went to the sink, he paused - for some reason, Noctis’s amygdala was lit up like a Christmas tree, showing he was anxious, but the patterns in the rest of his brain didn’t make any sense. That happened sometimes.

Prompto looked between the monitor and Noctis’s still form, a concerned and slightly guilty expression briefly flitting across his face.

“Sorry, Noct,” he sighed, although it came out a little strange, because Prompto’s nose was still clogged up. “I didn’t mean it. It’s not your fault. You’re still… my best friend. We have six months left together, so let’s make the best of it. I’m gonna take good care of you, whether you like it or not.”

He smiled gently. “I just… wish you were _here_.”

Giving a sad little chuckle and shaking his head, Prompto turned away to wash his hands again. When he turned around, his demeanour was much more professional and calm. 

“Now, let’s get you taken care of- what!” Prompto yelped as he looked back at Noctis. 

His body was glowing. 

Quickly, Prompto turned off the lights, just to check. In the dark, he could see that Noctis’s body was surrounded by an icy blue light, which pulsed with a gentle, steady rhythm. In spite of all the machines and wires around him, he looked beautifully ethereal.

Prompto’s heart gave a little leap.

He knew what was happening - he had seen it two times before. The first time Besithia had immediately rushed to stop it. The second time, Prompto hadn’t been there, but Besithia’s automated system had taken care of the situation.

_Noctis was waking up._

Prompto stood, frozen with indecision in the middle of the room. There was still time to intervene. As soon as the fMRI helmet detected signs that Noctis was exiting a sleeping state and entering a waking one, another machine he was connected to would deliver a shot of benzodiazepines directly into his bloodstream, which would be quickly followed up with by the same cocktail of classified drugs that had put him into the coma in the first place, and that would be that. 

A sense of urgency gripped Prompto, then. He and Noctis had nothing left to lose - _so let Noctis wake_. Springing into action, Prompto disconnected the IV line that ran to the central venous catheter implanted in Noctis’s chest with a few practised motions. His heart leapt again as his eye fell on the fMRI helmet and he prayed it hadn’t already registered the shift in the state of Noctis’s consciousness and sent an emergency alert out somewhere. Leaning over the bed, he grabbed the display screen behind Noctis’s head and began manual shutdown procedures.

By the time Prompto finished, the glow around Noctis had intensified, and the light around him was glinting strangely, as if tiny mirrored shards were floating through the air. Prompto held his breath as he watched in awe.

Noctis’s eyelashes fluttered. Prompto expected him to wake up then, but he didn’t. In fact, the glow was getting stronger and stronger, the crystal flakes in the air starting to audibly rustle and chime. Soon the light had become so blinding that Prompto threw his arm up in front of his face, backing away until he hit the wall behind him. The pressure in the room was mounting, making Prompto’s head pound. Desperately, his fingers scrabbled against the wall as he tried feeling his way along it to get to the exit. To his horror, he heard the sound of the heart monitor flat-lining.

And then the light engulfed the room in a blast of cold, powerful wind, which seemed to simultaneously freeze Prompto in place and blow right through him. Somewhere outside, there was a deep, muffled crash, powerful enough to shake the entire building. Just as the magical wind lessened, there was a cannonade of loud clicks as emergency protocol kicked in and all the locks on the floor engaged, like the snapping of metallic jaws. The click of the lock to the room they were in went off like a gunshot, and Prompto, already on edge, dropped down to his knees, hand gripping the sink counter beside him. 

Then, there was complete and utter silence. And when Prompto lowered his arm from his face and tried to look around, he found that he had been temporarily blinded. Golden spots danced before his eyes. But if he wasn’t mistaken, the yellow emergency lights built into the floor had illuminated, which meant that maybe… the power was out. Even if it was only on this floor, Prompto had never seen the power go out in Zegnautus Keep before.

Shakily, he got to his feet. As his vision slowly returned, Prompto became aware of heavy breathing in front of him - Noctis. Whose heart was clearly still beating, thank fucking goodness. Wishing he could see more than the dark form of the bed with its raised head, flanked by the soft yellow lights on the floor, Prompto got to his feet and leaned forward, trying to see if Noctis was okay. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he caught sight of the eerie magenta glow of Noctis’s irises. Noctis stared at him, his breathing still rather loud, though whether it was from the exertion of waking up or fear, Prompto couldn’t tell. 

“Easy, buddy,” he said, holding his hands up in a conciliatory way. “I’m not gonna hurt you. It’s just me -”

“Prompto?” Noctis said.

Prompto’s eyes flew open in shock. Noctis remembered his name? Even having learnt it when he was asleep? _How?_

And said in a tone of such hopeful familiarity, too.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s me,” Prompto said, almost whispering. It seemed like the dark, still environment of the shut-down lab demanded it. “Sorry, it’s just - I can’t really see. You kinda blinded me when you made the power go out.”

“The power’s out?” said Noctis, his voice raspy and long-disused, also kept down low.

“Yeah, your magic did that,” Prompto explained. 

“Am I - your prisoner?” Noctis said, one part accusing and one part fearful. It was then that Prompto realised he hadn’t really thought this through. Obviously, they would have to escape. There was no way Noctis could stay here and not be put back to sleep. Not to mention the trouble Prompto would get into for letting this happen to begin with. 

“Hell no,” Prompto whispered back. Blinking, he found that his vision had begun to clear. “We’re escaping,” he said. But shit, he realised, Noctis was connected to several other monitors, as well as to a catheter and a padded wire ankle cuff. But when Prompto hastily knelt down at the foot of the bed to see about removing it, he found that it had somehow vanished completely, leaving only the mount behind. 

“What the hell?” Prompto said. “You’re supposed to have an ankle cuff, but it’s just gone, dude.”

“What? I’m not attached to anything,” Noctis said in a tone of curt confusion. He probably wanted to get the hell out of there, and Prompto didn’t blame him. Part of his mind was listening for the sound of MT boots in the hallway, but so far, there had been only silence. He had to determine if it was safe to move Noctis immediately, or if he was still restrained by something.

“Can I see your g-tube?” Prompto asked, then realised Noctis wouldn’t know what he was referring to. “I mean, can I open the front of your gown?”

“I guess so?” Noctis said, sounding more confused than ever. Prompto shoved the blankets aside, then quickly undid the snaps on the front of the gown. Underneath he found the smooth expanse of Noctis’s chest, completely devoid of any signs he had ever had a feeding tube or a catheter implanted in his body, save for two small white scars: one on the right side of his stomach, and one over his heart. 

“Permission to touch?”

Noctis nodded, and Prompto pressed his fingers to the area around where the catheter had been. But the cuff of the catheter was gone. There was nothing beneath the skin. All of the medical equipment connected to Noctis’s body had completely, magically vanished in that blast of blue-white light, leaving disconnected IV stands and monitors behind.

 _Thank fuck_ , Prompto thought, although he knew the clock was ticking.

“Can you sit up at all?” he said. After a few moments of Noctis struggling, he managed to sit up a few inches from the raised head of the bed, but it became clear that he had lost most of his strength in the time he had been asleep. Not surprising, but Prompto knew he couldn’t carry Noctis all the way out of the building by himself. He was seriously praying that the elevator was still usable, because there was no way in hell he and Noctis could make it down the stairs.

“Okay. It’s okay. There are wheelchairs down the hallway,” he said, not bothering to mention that the wheelchairs were used more often as a form of restraint for would-be escapee test subjects who had to be transported, than as serious medical devices. “I’m gonna carry you,” Prompto added, hoping this wouldn’t turn out to be as bad an idea as he thought it might. 

“Where are the MTs?” Noctis said, once again showing that he had remarkable awareness for someone who had just come out of a freaking three-year-long coma.

“Locked into the rooms,” Prompto grunted, as he put one arm around Noctis’s back and the other under his legs, then heaved. 

“Oh shit,” he said, having successfully lifted Noctis from the bed. “ _We’re_ locked into the room.” Prompto turned instinctively towards the door, as Noctis raised one arm to hold on loosely around his neck.

“Shit,” Noctis cursed quietly. Then —

“Just kidding, the door’s open,” Prompto said. He could see that the locking mechanism of the door had engaged - and he remembered hearing it, too - but since the door hadn’t been closed, now it was still open, just with the engaged lock sticking out uselessly from the side of the door. Thank whatever gods were smiling down on Noctis for that one. 

Still carrying Noctis, Prompto nudged the door open with his foot, then made his way down the dark, deserted hallway, Noctis getting heavier with every step. They passed door after locked door, the concrete walls faceless and every corner hooded in shadows. Soon, they arrived at the central hub of the floor. It was similar to the nurse’s station in a hospital, but used only to store pieces of scientific equipment, and unstaffed except for MTs. Prompto swallowed nervously as they neared it, but the MTs were gone - lockdown protocol dictated they move to cover all points of exit and entry to the floor - so, they were at the elevator banks, and doubtless would cause trouble later when Prompto and Noctis tried to leave the building. Great. 

Finally, Prompto was able to set Noctis down in one of the wheelchairs. 

“You’re heavy,” he whispered, by way of explanation - or perhaps apology, though he had been as gentle as he could.

“This chair is bruising my ass. It’s hard as a rock,” Noctis shot back quietly, his body slumping forward. Prompto reached out and put a hand on his shoulder to hold him upright, and kept it there as he started wheeling Noctis towards the elevator. One of the wheels of the chair was a little squeaky, and it was set Prompto’s teeth on edge. The stillness was really freaking him out, as was knowing that soon they would be encountering a bunch of MTs, even if he hoped they would respond to his command. 

Just as they were nearing the elevator, there was a little _ping!_ and the sound of the door sliding open. Light from inside the elevator spilt out into the hallway. Then Prompto heard the sound of MT feet, and a voice. 

Besithia’s voice.

“Stand down,” Besithia snapped curtly at the MTs around the elevator. Prompto felt ice sliding into his veins. He risked a glance at Noctis’s face and saw that he looked just as freaked out as Prompto felt. Things were going from bad to worse - _shit_. 

Prompto gave a tiny, gentle tug on the handle of the wheelchair, and the resulting quiet whine from the wheels made him and Noctis cringe in unison. He immediately froze again, feeling Noctis’s heart beating under his hand. The two of them strained to hear Besithia’s voice - had he heard the noise?

All was quiet. Then - 

“Did you hear something?” came the voice of a human female. So Besithia wasn’t alone. All Prompto could think was how fucked they were right now. His stomach clenched, but he had to do _something_. So, he put his arms around Noctis, intending to try and lift him and carry him away without making any more noise. 

Just as he did that, Besithia, dressed in his customary lab coat but carrying a Magnum pistol, and not one but two human soldiers, carrying Rapidus submachine guns, appeared at the end of the hallway about 15 paces away. 

“Hands up!” one of the soldiers barked, both soldiers pointing their SMGs at them and beginning to slowly approach. But Prompto didn’t immediately comply, instead tightening his hold around Noctis, as if by using his own body as a shield he could somehow protect both of them. He could feel the adrenaline rush through his veins, but his body was rigid, paralysed. 

Then, Prompto felt Noctis go slack in his arms. When he glanced down in alarm, he saw Noctis had slumped against the side of the chair, his eyes closed in a feigned sleep. _Noct was right_ \- he had to lie, had to find an explanation, had to find a way - had to keep Noctis safe, had to get out of this _alive_.

“What in the Emperor’s name,” Besithia said, sounding genuinely shocked as his eyes fell upon Noctis in the wheelchair. As his gaze flicked back to Prompto, he sneered disdainfully. “Of course. It’s _you_. No, no, don’t shoot,” he added, holding up one hand for emphasis. The two soldiers flanking him stopped moving, but they did not lower their weapons. Prompto tried to find something to say, but nothing was coming, only panic. 

“I raised you as my son, and this is how you repay me? By sabotaging my work?” Besithia snapped, striding furiously towards Prompto. Instinctively, he stepped away from Noctis, unable to face Besithia’s gaze.

“I had to move him,” he finally blurted out. “The power went out - and the door was unlocked - I didn’t know what to do-”

“You were absolutely not to move him, under any circumstances. Am I supposed to believe you are seriously stupid enough to forget the most basic of protocol? I should’ve spent more research money on developing you a better brain.” As Besithia spoke, he punctuated each phrase by looming closer and closer, until he was right next to the wheelchair, shoving it aside so he could grab Prompto by the collar and stare directly into his face. Prompto cringed, trying to keep Besithia at arm’s length, but he wouldn’t let him go. This close, his blue eyes seemed to bulge and deep lines of anger wrinkled his face into a mask.

“I thought you would want -” Prompto tried again, desperately, but Besithia cut him off.

“Oh, so you _thought_. That’s the first time in a long time, then,” he sneered. 

“I live to serve the Empire,” Prompto said miserably, knowing better than to attempt to stand up for himself. He just had to wait until Besithia calmed down long enough to let him try and explain. But the words curdled in his mouth like spoilt milk, and his body burned with shame and rage.

“Really?” Besithia said, shaking his head. “The confidence with which you say that astounds me given that you seem to be absconding with one of my most valuable possessions.”

“I - I was only protecting him,” Prompto said, feeling the glimmer of a real lie coming together in his mind and immediately latching onto it. “When the power went out, the door didn’t lock. I thought maybe an intruder might be trying to steal him. So I was gonna get him to a safe location. That’s all, honest, I swear!”

“An intruder,” Besithia said, seeming to consider it. “And if we search this entire floor and find no intruder, you’ll be taking a trip to the Martyr Maker.”

Not that Prompto _wanted_ to be a test subject for the latest incarnation of Besithia’s cross-shaped torture device, but that didn’t really matter at this point when he knew that his life was going to be short and miserable no matter what happened. 

“You will find one,” he bluffed, looking Besithia straight in the eye. 

Besithia looked taken aback. His gaze flicked from Prompto to Noctis, still feigning sleep in his wheelchair. Prompto tried to look concerned but innocent, even though he could feel the sweat dripping down his spine. The longer Besithia thought, the more his stomach churned.

“Actually, I changed my mind,” Besithia said calmly. “You were right to move the test subject. Let’s take him down to the 32nd floor. I believe that’s Phaedes’ department.”

Prompto immediately blanched. Besithia was being serious - he could tell by his tone of voice. Besithia wouldn’t let Noctis go unguarded while they were searching the floor, and if no intruder was found - as none would be - then there would be no chance to escape. 

And so Noctis would end up on the 32nd floor. With Prompto’s brother Phaedes, who was known for vivisecting all the test subjects he was entrusted with. If he got ahold of Noctis even for a day, then Noctis would be crippled forever if not outright killed.

Finding his voice, Prompto exclaimed, “What? No, you can’t!”

Besithia slammed Prompto up against the wall, making him cry out in pain. “What are you hiding?” Besithia growled. Before Prompto could answer, Besithia had cocked the Magnum in his free hand and put it to Prompto’s temple. 

“Nothing! Let me go!” Prompto said desperately, feeling lightheaded with fear. Tears were springing to his eyes but he pushed them down - he could not afford to cry. To make matters worse, when he glanced over Besithia’s shoulder, he saw that Noctis’s eyes had shot open and he was looking directly at Prompto, though he still hadn’t moved. Prompto tried to convey with his eyes that it was normal for Besithia to hurt him like this, that they still had a chance of escaping together if only Noctis would just _hold on_.

Then Besithia curled his lip in disgust and threw Prompto to the ground, pistol-whipping him in the back as he did so. An explosion of pain rippled down Prompto’s spine, and he found himself lying on the cold metal floor. He groaned, pushing himself up onto his elbows until his face was level with Noctis’s bare feet in the stirrups of the wheelchair. For a moment, Prompto wondered if somehow he had hit his head - because Noctis’s feet seemed to be glowing blue.

“You pathetic shit,” Besithia said, giving Prompto’s side a nudge with his boot as he tried to sit up. Prompto decided to just stay down on his knees. He couldn’t glance over to Noctis without risking alerting Besithia, so he forced himself to stare straight ahead at the wall. “You always do this, ever since you were a child.” Besithia sneered down his nose as he spoke. “It’s like you just can’t help yourself. If it’s not making pets out of worthless lab mice, it’s worrying after those blasted clones. And now this! I’ve had it with you and your shit. This is the last time.”

“I won’t do it again,” Prompto promised through gritted teeth. 

“No, you won’t do it again,” Besithia snapped, “because effective immediately I’m terminating you.” 

Very clearly, Noctis spoke. “Old man, shut the hell up.”

All at once, the glow around Noctis intensified to the point where it illuminated the entire hallway, and twelve translucent, crystalline weapons burst from the air around his body. Besithia raised the Magnum as he rounded on Noctis, but he was too slow to stop one of the swords from darting forward and impaling him in the chest. He fired off a wild shot, which embedded itself in the wall beside Noctis’s head as Noctis levitated into the air, the swords rotating in a continuous shield that encompassed both himself and Prompto. 

Besithia’s body hit the floor and the two guards opened fire, but Noctis’s rotating weapons closed ranks in the direction of the attack so that the bullets simply bounced off. The continuous stream of fire was thunderous in Prompto’s ears. Figures appeared in the hallway behind Besithia and the soldiers - the four Magitek Axemen which had originally been guarding the elevator, no doubt summoned by the gunfire. As the soldiers began to approach, Noctis raised his arm, fist clenched. Just as it seemed the soldiers would be close enough to break though the wall of weapons, Noctis opened his fist and sent two swords flying towards the soldiers, killing both of them.

Then the Magiteks were upon them, close enough that Prompto could see their red eyes glowing and hear the whirring in their joints as eight deadly axes danced through the air. Noctis parried each Magitek with a different weapon - mace, staff, shield, axe - each parry ringing out with a metallic clang. Prompto, still on the ground beside the wheelchair, was terrified that four MTs at once would be too much for Noctis, who was still glowing vibrantly but also visibly sweating. His eye fell on the Rapidus SMG that one of the soldiers had dropped, which was just outside the safe circle created by Noctis’s weapons. 

Just as Noctis parried one of the MTs with a big metal throwing star that threw up a shower of sparks as it hit, Prompto dove for the gun and was able to snatch it right before a second Magitek’s axes hit the ground right where his hand had been with a dull clang of metal on metal. Noctis used this opening to decapitate that Magitek as Prompto opened fire. He took out the second and third MTs, as Noctis finished off the fourth with his sword. The head of the Magitek that had been met by the sword rolled down the hallway to the elevator and disappeared.

Then the glow around Noctis faded, the blades vanished, and Noctis dropped back into the chair like a sack of potatoes. Instantly dropping the gun on the ground with a clatter, Prompto caught Noctis under the arms at the last minute, barely easing his way down.

“Noct?” Prompto said anxiously, seeing that Noctis’s eyes were closed and his face was covered in sweat. He was still breathing, though. After trying a few more times to rouse him, unsuccessfully, Prompto checked his pulse and found it to be a little fast, but gradually slowing. He couldn’t have slipped back into a coma so soon after waking up - could he?

Looking at the three lifeless bodies, still leaking blood out onto the floor and walls, Prompto knew he’d have to wait to find out. He was still shaken and slightly nauseated by what had just happened, but he still had strength enough in his arms and legs to push a wheelchair, so he was damn well going to do it.

Awkwardly, he wheeled Noctis between Besithia and one of the two dead soldiers, shuddering when the wheels squeaked on the blood-slick floor. He tried to avoid stepping in any blood himself, but wasn’t entirely successful. While watching his steps, he accidentally ran Noctis’s wheelchair over Besithia’s coat-tails. Then he had to get the chair past the Magiteks, which was more difficult since there were four of them. Prompto did not feel bad about shoving their metallic shells up against the wall. Once free, he hurried down the length of the hall as fast as possible, happy to put the corpses behind him.

Once they arrived at the elevator doors, Prompto could only pray that no one else would try to get in as they descended the floors. He was all shaken up and probably looked it, and the wheelchair was leaving suspicious, streaky red tracks behind it, too. Not to mention that moving sleeping test subjects in wheelchairs was not even remotely a regular procedure.

But for some reason, the elevator doors wouldn’t open, no matter how many times Prompto pressed the ‘down’ button. The decapitated MT head that had rolled down the corridor was staring at him judgementally, and it was freaking him out. He was about to start panicking, when he realised that _maybe Besithia had put the rest of the building on lock-down_. The only way to get the elevator to move would be to scan the access card of someone with level 12 clearance or higher. And the only person around here with level 15 clearance was Besithia.

Oh fuck - Prompto wished he didn’t have to do this, but he was going to do it anyway. Leaving Noctis beside the elevator, Prompto walked back over to Besithia’s corpse. Ugh. He was used to blood, even to corpses, but something about rooting around in his dead father’s pockets was making him shudder. Prompto started by snagging Besithia’s Magnum, which he tucked into the waistband of his jeans. Then he took Besithia’s wallet, keys, phone, and spare ammunition, but found nothing else other than some pens, though he checked every pocket. He grabbed those as well, just in case.

Back at the elevator, he scanned Besithia’s access card, heaving a sigh of relief when the doors immediately opened. After wheeling Noctis in, he hit the button for the level of the civilian parking garage, which was all the way at the bottom of the building, and underground. Most visitors to Zegnautus Keep who did not actually live there would fly in on airships, but on the off chance that someone might want or need to drive around Gralea, a few cars were kept on hand. 

The elevator ride to the ground was long - long enough for Prompto to start imagining wild scenarios wherein there would be MTs waiting for him when he reached the ground. When the doors finally opened with a happy little _ding!_ , Prompto just about jumped out of his skin. But there was no sign of any human or MT in the parking lot, just Prompto alone, surrounded by just a few dozen deserted cars. 

His breathing seemed to echo, and his hands were sweating as he held up the keys and pressed the unlock button repeatedly as he and Noctis passed car after empty car. With every car that failed to respond as Prompto and Noctis passed, he became more afraid that these keys might correspond to a military vehicle, which would mean that they would have to go one floor down and search an even bigger area.

Then, Prompto’s fingers slipped on the keys. He fumbled, managed to grab them, and accidentally hit the panic button. A fancy black sedan just a few feet ahead of him began letting out an ear-splitting beeping noise, and its lights began to flash. Prompto yelped, then hit the button again to stop that awful noise. After practically dragging Noctis over to the car, Prompto unlocked it and threw open the passenger-side door. 

Shoving Noctis into the car, Prompto somehow managed to get him buckled up and the door closed without shutting any of his limbs in the door. After wrestling with the wheelchair for a moment he forced it into the backseat with a crunch, and dashed around to the driver’s side. Was the elevator lighting up to show that someone was descending? Prompto caught only a glimpse of it from the corner of his eye as he put the car into gear and zoomed towards the exit ramp.

Moments later, after following the ramp up a distance of about one floor, Prompto found himself facing a keycard-activated metal door. After looking through Besithia’s wallet again, Prompto found the card for the parking garage, which he scanned. Even though the building was on lockdown, it seemed that Besithia had made an exception for himself, should he have wanted to leave Zegnautus Keep in an emergency. Inch by inch, a rectangle of well-lit Gralean street was revealed, topped with a hazy Gralean night sky. Prompto had never once seen the city from the ground level at night. 

There was a first time for everything - killing your boss, escaping with a coma patient, and night driving in Gralea. 

“Let’s do this, Noct,” Prompto said, more for himself than for Noctis. He floored the gas pedal and they escaped Zegnautus Keep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU TO:  
> ○ [Nvr5getti](http://nvr5getti.tumblr.com), my beta, who spent literal hours on the phone with me trying to get Besithia to sound like a believable villain, as well as providing her expertise in medicine and some information about guns. Your beta could never  
> ○ [Glittercracker](http://archiveofourown.org/users/glittercracker/pseuds/glittercracker), who gave me expert advice on certain passages that were bugging me  
> ○ [SayNevermore](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SayNevermore/pseuds/SayNevermore), who helped me with some details of Niflheim worldbuilding, such as how Prompto would curse (Notice Besithia saying "What in the Emperor's name!")
> 
> \----
> 
> Word of God on Prompto’s brothers says that Loqi is the nicest, Phaedes is the most evil, and all of them are LGBT because look how Prompto turned out. (For the purposes of this fic, Prompto is pansexual.) :D
> 
> Here’s your friendly neighbourhood Nurse Prompto with some PSAs about the accuracy of the medicine practiced in this fic:  
> -People who are put into comas with drugs (usually barbiturates) require mechanical ventilation, which is why the drugs Noctis was given were "classified" (the author didn't want to deal with researching mechanical ventilation on top of everything else)  
> -Noctis is in _fantastic_ shape for someone who just came out of a coma. I won't go into the details here but he should maybe be even more physically weak and probably less mentally alert as well. But fortunately he has magic on his side~ ;3  
>  -fMRI helmets are real but really, really rare. And we don't know enough about the brain to be able to interpret someone's thoughts solely based on the activation of different areas of the brain like I do in this fic - but we will one day...  
> -The right temporoparietal junction is "a key area involved in imagining others’ thoughts and goals" (thank you, Scientific American).  
> -If you want to watch someone come out of a coma in a somewhat more realistic way, go watch the opening to Metal Gear Solid 5. 
> 
> \---  
> EDIT: I somehow managed to get myself into a position where my entire update schedule just got screwed, like immediately after posting this chapter. So never mind about that. Sorry to everyone who was hoping this stupid thing would update consistently. The fic _is_ finished, though. I will update asap but please be patient. I'm currently occupied being stressed out by life in new ways that I didn't even think were possible.
> 
> Comments always welcome!


	3. In Which Prompto Does Some Late Night Shopping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ** Please hover over this text for chapter warnings (contains spoilers) **

Half an hour later, Prompto was ready to scream aloud in frustration as they hit yet another red light. His stomach was a roiling boil of anxiety, stress, and heartburn, yet his body felt frozen and jittery. 

_Emperor, Astrals, someone, just get me out of Gralea_ , he prayed, before his attention was drawn, inescapably, back to the stoplights ahead. Everything not directly in front of him was ignored and instantly forgotten, streaks of colour and sounds that faded. The road before him was the only thing he could see, even as his mind tumultuously and circuitously churned out thoughts of escape.

Although the ride seemed torturously long, they were actually making excellent time. It was evening, and there had been no major accidents in their path. The city was just too big for Prompto to have a hope of driving across it in anything less than an hour. 

Eventually, someone would go up to the 34th floor and find Verstael Besithia’s corpse. Someone else would notice that in spite of the fact that he was dead on the 34th floor, he had somehow made use of the elevator. The movement of access cards was tracked all over the building, after all. But would they be able to figure out that Besithia’s car was missing from the civilian garage? And would they notice that Prompto and Noctis were gone?

It wasn’t really an _if_ , more of a _when_. 

Then, they’d send search parties outside of the Keep, probably in airships, although it was difficult to land an airship in Gralea. So perhaps pursuers on motorcycles…

Prompto glanced over at Noctis, who was still apparently sleeping, head lolling back against the corner of his seat and the car door. He looked angelically peaceful, if uncomfortably positioned. His cheeks held a healthy pink and his breathing was deep and even. 

_But what if Noctis didn’t wake up?_

Prompto physically flinched at the thought, and he tapped his fingers restlessly against the steering wheel. Then the light finally changed, and he drove off as fast as he could without causing a traffic accident, carrying them farther towards the edge of the city. 

There was only one way out of Gralea that Prompto could count on. Theoretically anyone could get a train ticket, but in practice only rich and important people did; while airships were definitely only for rich people and important people, especially if they were associated with the military. The only chance Prompto and Noctis had was a single road called the pipeline, which dated to back before the advent of the airship, and was the only road out of Gralea that hadn’t been ruined. Prompto took a moment to thank his lucky stars that it was past spring thaw and the road would be clear and open - assuming he managed to get past border control.

As they neared the tunnel, the traffic crawled to a standstill - even though there were only two cars ahead of them. As a worker in a sterile environment, Prompto didn’t really bite his nails due to stress, but he was seriously considering starting. Either the car in front was being thoroughly searched from bonnet to boot before being let into the tunnel, or the line just wasn’t moving at all. Feeling like he had to start moving or he would lose his mind right then and there, Prompto grabbed Besithia’s wallet and started fidgeting with it in his lap. His eyes stayed glued intently to the guard booth beside the road, the lowered metal gate blocking his access to freedom.

When he finally reached the gate, Prompto was planning to just bluff his way out of the city by affecting the entitled attitude of his brothers and flashing his barcode around. But if the barcode was actually scanned, it was instantly game over. All barcode scanners were connected to the Magitek Management System, which tracked the movements of test subjects, Magiteks, and prisoners like Noctis around the empire through the locations their barcodes were scanned. But he couldn’t just pretend to be an ordinary citizen, either, because their movements were tracked through the scanning of ID cards, which Prompto did not have - a driver’s license was not the same thing. His best bet was to use his Besithia name to get out of the city. If it came to it, he might be able to get some extra clout by waving Besithia’s diplomatic visa around, as long as he covered up the name. He flipped it through his fingers over and over again, imagining what he would say when they pulled up to the window.

Finally, a soldier appeared from inside the building to the left of the guard booth which blocked entry into the tunnel, and Prompto realised that the traffic control point had been completely vacant for the entire time he had been sitting there. Prompto would’ve bashed his forehead against the steering wheel if he hadn’t been so busy rehearsing his entitled brat speech last minute. 

A few minutes later, the gate lifted and the car at the front of the line disappeared into the tunnel. Another few minutes, and the second car had cleared. Prompto made it to the traffic control point and rolled down his window, scowling hard to mask his fear.

“What the hell took so long?” he snapped, trying to channel Helixion’s arrogance and Viribus’s disdain. The impatience was easy to fake because it was actually real. He felt totally transparent, his tone of voice tinny. But the guard in the booth took one look at his face, recognised him as one of Besithia’s sons, and gulped like he wanted to disappear into the floor. Prompto almost felt bad for him. 

Valiantly, the man tried to answer Prompto’s question. “I’m so sorry, sir. There was an incident at Zegnautus Keep, and military and law enforcement personnel all over the city are being called there at the moment.”

“I damn well know there was an “incident” at the Keep,” Prompto said, knowing it would look suspicious if one of Besithia’s own sons hadn’t been informed about the emergency lockdown. “That’s no reason to keep me waiting. Now, are you gonna let me out of here or not?”

For a split second the guard hesitated, as if seriously considering asking to scan the barcode on the wrist Prompto had draped over the steering wheel, the better to display it. 

“Very well, sir. Have a good night,” the guard said at last, waving his hand to indicate Prompto could pass. Prompto gave him one last scowl, then peeled off into the tunnel as fast as he could, his heart roaring with victory in his chest and adrenaline rushing through his veins. 

He carried that high with him for the entire length of the tunnel. Empty as it was, the reflective markings on the road glowing under the bright white lights as they flashed by, it felt as if he were in some strange, alternate dimension, an unreal place between hell (Gralea), and whatever awaited him in the outside world. Tenebrae? Accordo? Galahad? Lucis? Right now, Prompto only cared about getting out of Niflheim. Nowhere within it was safe. He didn’t care that all these countries had been occupied by the Empire for years now. He had to go somewhere where at least no one knew his face.

There was no daylight at the end of the tunnel to welcome Prompto to the world outside Gralea, as it was well past curfew now. Instead, there was a long, empty stretch of road, lined with distantly-spaced, faint yellow streetlights. No sound broke the stillness but the rumble of the engine. The sky sparkled with stars, unobscured save for the dark streak of the elevated train tracks, leading off into the distance where the bridge met the earth again.

The emptiness made Prompto uneasy, as if everything were too quiet. There were no other cars in sight, no other sounds. Prompto was completely alone, save for the sleeping Noctis, on a long, dark road. The only signs of life around were glowing clusters of bombs off in the distance, as small bands of demons sporadically roamed the plains. Seeing them, Prompto panicked for a moment before finding the setting for demon-repelling headlights on the dashboard. Thank fuck Besithia’s car was full of expensive special features. And could do 160 kilometres per hour easy, so fast it _felt_ fast, like he was actually putting some distance between himself and the people who wanted to kill him in Gralea. 

Time blurred by, Prompto aggressively ignoring everything around him save for the horizon ahead. After almost two hours of driving, they came to a small town, all lit up and surrounded by chain-link and barbed-wire fence to keep out the demons. The road in and out of town was unobstructed, but two bright UV spotlights were trained on the gap in the fence. Near the entrance to the town was a 24-hour rest stop, and oh, how Prompto needed a coffee. 

Getting out of the car, he stumbled and had to catch himself because his limbs were so stiff and cramped. His brain was fogged as if he had just woken up from a long trance, not having yet caught up with the fact that the car had actually stopped, he was at a rest stop, and he needed to buy some stuff now. 

Prompto tottered around the store, collecting all the things he could think of that could be useful, including food for him and something for Noctis that was easy to eat, coffee he knew he wouldn’t like, and some heartburn meds. It felt like he was forgetting something, which was disconcerting. But maybe it wasn’t that he wanted to buy something else, it was just that being still rather than driving at 160 KM per hour away from Gralea was making him anxious.

Then his eye fell on a strange display up near the cash register. For some reason, the rest stop was inexplicably sporting a whole rack of Pusciellan ice hockey clothing, even though they were basically still in the Ueltham region. Prompto himself was wearing the civilian clothes he had had on underneath his white lab coat, which had been left in the car as a blanket for Noctis. But Noctis was still wearing only a button-up hospital gown and elastic waisted pants.

“You like the Pusciello team?” the attendant said as Prompto set a pair of boxers, a tank top, and two hoodies down on the counter - he had a feeling he’d made her night. “M’daughter skates with ‘em. Ulya Foirsitia.”

“Oh wow, really?” Prompto said, trying to fake some enthusiasm, though he actually didn’t know the first thing about ice hockey. He had just wanted to get Noctis an emergency outfit, and then decided to get a hoodie for himself as well so that he and Noctis would match. He didn’t want Noctis to feel bad about wearing an outfit entirely composed of ice hockey merchandise. Also, he was cold.

“Yes. Did you see their last match? They crushed that pathetic team from Gralea real good. Hah! Do they raise only weaklings in the city?”

“Oh, definitely,” Prompto agreed, fixedly watching the price increase on the register’s read-out, and fiddling with Besithia’s wallet under the counter. He had his own wallet, stashed in the pocket of his jeans, but why not spend Besithia’s money first? 

“Your daughter is amazing, ma’am. Thanks for the clothes,” Prompto said, the instant the attendant had rung up the last item. She looked at him a little suspiciously as he rushed to pay and get out the door. “Sorry, long night ahead of me,” Prompto excused himself. 

“Ah, well, it is always good to meet another Pusciello Ice Hockey fan,” she said, waving him goodbye. 

Prompto quickly crossed the parking lot, shivering in the cold. He was so, so tired, and it wasn’t even midnight. When he reached his solitary car, he opened the driver’s side, set down his bags and put the coffee in the. He grabbed one of the two new hoodies and pulled it on over his t-shirt, unease prickling the back of his neck.

That was nothing compared to the intense feeling of doom that hit him as soon as he had grabbed the side of the car with the intent to sit down in the driver’s seat. All of a sudden, the tiny interior seemed like the inside of Prompto’s coffin closing in on him. His heart began to beat faster, hammering against his chest as if trying to burst out. He felt his legs give way beneath him and immediately dropped to kneel on the cold tarmac beside the car. 

_Oh shit - I’m gonna throw up -_

Prompto’s knees and arms were shaking badly, but he managed to curl up into a ball with his head between his knees and his back against the car. His thoughts flew in and out of his mind in a fog of white noise, formless and wordless and afraid.

_What am I doing - I need to get out of here - Just go make yourself throw up in a corner - You need this to be over - I can’t fucking move - Gotta get out of here -_

He felt like he was suffocating. The night was closing in on him to kill him and there was no way to escape. 

_This is a fucking panic attack_ , Prompto finally realised. The knowledge did nothing but make his thoughts more frantic. 

_It’s not going to stop - Have to remember to breathe - Gotta get out of here - Can’t do this - BREATHE -_

Prompto forced himself to take a deep, shaky breath which felt and sounded more like a sob. Tears were gathering at the corners of his eyes, but he blinked them back hard from force of long habit, pulling in another painful breath. He knew how to measure his breathing, but it had been such a long time that he felt he was doing it all wrong and this terror was never going to end. Prompto desperately wished for someone to come and count breaths for him, for even just the familiar steady beeping of Noctis’s heartbeat monitor. 

But he could still feel the wild thumping of his own heart, jumping and beating at the crushing weight on his chest, and somehow, through all the noise, was able to start hanging on to those frantic beats. 

_In - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - Hold it - 2, 3 - fuck - 6, 7 - Out - 2 - 3 - 4 -_

Over and over Prompto counted, the first few sets mistimed and faltering, until, slowly, his breathing began to calm, the press of his chest released, and the shaking in his limbs lessened. As the panic faded, the paralysis that held him released. Prompto let out a deep and heartfelt sigh, pressing his forehead to his knees and wiping his teary eyes with the back of his hand. 

Then he finally raised his head - and froze. The parking lot sat right on the edge of town, and through the chain link fence he could see a strange fiery thing watching him from some distance away from town. At first he thought it was a demon - a fire bomb, maybe, but it wasn’t floating. As soon as his eyes made contact, he felt heat wash over him, a contrast to the cold, hard ground and the cold car door pressing up against his back. His shivering eased, and so did his fear. 

Then he blinked, and the figure was gone - vanished, as if it had never been. Prompto sat there staring out into the dark, wondering why he felt so calm all of a sudden. Had he panicked so hard he had ended up hallucinating? 

It was the cold which shook Prompto back to his senses. He hauled himself to his knees, feeling his body creak in protest as he did so - but not as badly as he had expected. He turned back to face the open car door, nervously looking at the dark interior and praying he could get back in without sparking another panic attack. But logically, he knew that it wasn’t really his claustrophobia which had suddenly flared up and sparked the one he had just had. It was the fact of killing Besithia and running away that had done it. It wasn’t just knowing he and Noctis could be killed at any moment, it was knowing that from now on, his life would never be the same again, no matter how short a life it might be.

Leaning over, Prompto flicked the light switch on the interior of the car. 

“That’s better,” he said to himself as he pushed the bags on the driver’s seat to the floor. As he gingerly slipped inside, his breathing hitched, but he managed to stay calm. 

Mentally sighing in profound relief, Prompto shut the door, then realised the interior of the car was freezing because it had been open for so long. Guiltily, he looked over at Noctis, who had goosebumps on the exposed length of one arm. Prompto turned the car on to get the heating going, then tilted his seat back so he could rest as he ate slowly, needing the energy but not wanting to agitate his heartburn. 

“Glad you didn’t see that, Noct,” he said quietly, biting his lip. Tentatively, he reached out and touched the back of Noctis’s hand. Still no reply, and Prompto sighed, missing the fMRI monitor more than ever. 

After he had finished eating, Prompto balled up Noctis’s new outfit inside of his hoodie and slipped it under his head as a pillow for him. For a moment, he was jealous of Noctis, wishing he could have a nice long sleep too. But they had to press on. The faster they ran, the greater their chances of ultimately surviving.

Feeling like he needed some human contact, Prompto put the radio on before pulling out of the parking lot. The chatter of two hosts talking about the cold spring weather was instantly comforting as they got back on the road.

They drove past another few small rest stops and towns, but for the most part, the landscape was empty. A few hills rose here and there, some piles of snow, a few scrub brushes… more flat, open plains, and then there was a small forest of pine trees. He stopped to get another coffee around 3:30 AM. The rest stop he got it from was right next to a river, and Prompto saw an opportunity. It wasn’t safe to keep driving around with his phone or Besithia’s, in case they could be tracked. So, after getting his nice, warm coffee, he went down to the river and pitched both phones in.

The serialised soap opera on the radio blurred into static, and Prompto switched the station to some shitty pop music. 

Finally, the sky began to break open to light, black giving way to dark blue streaked with yellow, pink, and orange. The woods faded away to be replaced with open plains again, and Prompto had a glorious view of the sunset on the right side of the windshield and out the passenger-side window, haloing Noctis’s head in butter yellow warmth. 

“We made it to the Chorovaux Rift, buddy,” Prompto informed him, smiling gently. Noctis finally responded by giving a sleepy little murmur, and Prompto’s heart leapt. 

_Definitely not another coma, then._

The closer they got to the Tenebraen border, the more nervous Prompto got. But it was a distant sort of nervousness, a dull throb of anxiety in the pit of his stomach. Mostly, he was just tired and cranky. Glancing over at Noctis with his fashionable ice hockey hoodie pillow every so often cheered Prompto up a little bit, although he did feel bad about it. It helped him power through until they reached an empty parking lot with some public toilets at the side of the road, just twenty minutes from the Tenebrean border. 

Stepping out of the car and stretching his legs in the morning sunshine felt really, really good, as well as eating Noctis’s yogurt and taking some more heartburn meds. Just as he was finishing up, Noctis stirred again.

“Hey, Noct, you awake?” he said. Noctis mumbled something. To Prompto’s pleasant surprise, Noctis’s eyelashes fluttered. Prompto held his breath. 

And Noctis’s eyes opened. 

“Ugh…” Noctis groaned, rolling his shoulders in apparent discomfort. Prompto winced in sympathy, wishing he’d had more than just a lab coat and a hoodie for Noctis to sleep on all night. 

“Where are we?” Noctis said, struggling to sit up and glancing out the car window. All that could be seen outside were the big, vacant lot, the small concrete building that housed the bathrooms, and bare, scruffy plains as far as the eye could see, bathed in the golden glow of early morning. Prompto noticed now - he hadn’t noticed it earlier - that Noctis’s eyes were a really striking shade of clear blue-grey. They were lovely. 

“We’re still in Niflheim, but we almost made it to the border,” Prompto said, helping Noctis without a word. “We’re going to Tenebrae.”

“Tenebrae?” Noctis said, staring at him openly. “Prompto… you’re getting us out of the country?”

Prompto grinned. “Oh, hell yeah, I am,” he said. 

Noctis stared openly for long minutes, then shook his head. “Wow… I - I just can’t believe this. I thought… I was gonna be in Zegnautus Keep for the rest of my life. So, I guess… thanks.”

“Don’t thank me yet. Who knows where we’ll be going after we get into Tenebrae,” Prompto said, more flippant than he felt. In reality, he was getting flustered from Noctis’s undeserved praise. “But yeah. No problem, Noct. And it’s not like we could just stay there after I let you kill Besithia.”

“You _let_ me, sure,” Noctis snorted. “Listen, do you have any food? I’m starving.”

“Yeah, and I got you some real clothes, too, if you let me have your pillow,” Prompto said, holding out his hand.

Noctis let him take it, leaning back against the car door again, and Prompto started unfolding the bundle. 

“Why does all of this have the name of a ice hockey team on it?” Noctis said. “Wait, your hoodie is the same as this one.”

“Yeah, the lady at the gas station in Ueltham was a fan,” Prompto laughed, and recounted his pit stop to Noctis, leaving out the part about the panic attack and subsequent bizarre demonic vision. 

After they got Noctis changed, Prompto helped him eat some applesauce, because Noctis _could_ lift the spoon, but his grip wasn’t really strong enough to do it over and over again. Prompto also helped him into the bathroom. Noctis complained the entire time, probably because he was embarrassed. 

Once Noctis was settled back into his wheelchair, Prompto was on the verge of wheeling him out when Noctis said, “Hey. Wait.”

Confused at first, Prompto tried following Noctis’s gaze and realised he was looking at himself in the mirror over the sink a few paces away. Prompto knew what he would be seeing. Pale skin, untouched by sun for the past four years. Dark circles under his eyes, hollowed bone structure from his long time sleeping. Lank hair, which Prompto had always tried to keep neat for him, but which went down below his shoulders and had uneven hunks cut out of it on both sides of his face. It was his first glimpse his appearance in years, and it must have been jarring.

At first, Noctis just looked at himself in shock. Then, his eyes narrowed.

“What the fuck happened to my hair?” Noctis said in a dangerous tone. 

“Besithia was taking research samples from it,” Prompto said nervously. “We can get you a hair cut later, though…” 

Noctis stared at his reflexion with brows knitted together in anger, and Prompto noticed his fists clenching in his lap. He waited, wondering if Noctis was going to speak again. 

Finally, he said in a low voice, “How long was I asleep for?”

“Uh…” Prompto started, feeling like Noctis wouldn’t like the answer.

“How long, Prompto?” he snapped.

“Three years,” Prompto said, looking down at the cracked bathroom tiles. “Five since the war started.”

“ _Three_ fucking years?” Noctis said, his voice breaking with anger. “Three _years_?” 

“I know it was a long time, Noct, but things are gonna be okay,” Prompto said pleadingly.

“I’m never gonna get that back!” Noctis said, as if Prompto were an idiot. “What, you just think it’s _okay_ that I just _lost_ three years of my life? In what fucking world is something like that okay?”

“I just… you know…” Prompto tried to reply. “At least you’re not dead, right? And I’m here.” There was no belief in his voice. He didn’t have the energy to do this. He just wanted to get into Tenebrae, find somewhere safe to park, and sleep in the car until he couldn’t sleep anymore. He was so tired.

“Who cares?” Noctis spat. “I might _as well_ be dead. Lucis is gone. Fucking Astrals only know what happened to my friends - they’re probably all dead, too.”

Prompto swallowed convulsively, balling his hands into fists so tightly his nails cut into his skin. “I’m sorry, okay?” he forced himself to say, his throat tight. “I know it’s my fault. I should’ve got you out sooner. I’m sorry.”

“What?” Noctis said sharply. Prompto forced himself to look up, and met Noctis’s eyes in the bathroom mirror. Too late, he realised he’d made a mistake. He’d meant to placate Noctis by validating his anger. But now Noctis would just get angrier than ever since he now had a reason to yell at Prompto in particular. 

But just as Prompto felt like he was about break down completely, Noctis said, “No. No, that’s, no.” 

He still sounded angry and confused, but he was shaking his head and looking up at Prompto behind him in the mirror. He opened his mouth as if to say something else. Then he stopped. Took a deep breath, scowled, and before Prompto could stop him, he had pulled back his fist and punched the wall beside the door with all the strength remaining in his body. The smack of his fist making contact with the ceramic tiles made Prompto cringe in sympathy. 

“Just get me the fuck out of this bathroom,” Noctis said bitterly, scowling to mask his grimace of pain. Prompto immediately wheeled him outside, glad to leave that horribly grim space and their argument behind. He could only imagine what would happen after they got to Tenebrae. Maybe Noctis hated him now. 

They were both very quiet as Prompto helped Noctis back into the car, where he swiftly lapsed back into sleep. 

Prompto vowed he would do everything in his power to get them to Tenebrae. Maybe he should have escaped with Noctis sooner, but he could make up for it now by making sure they survived. He absolutely could not fail Noctis again.

After making sure that Noctis really was asleep by saying his name a couple of times, he retrieved the Magnum ammunition he’d stashed in the backseat when giving Noctis his lab coat. He loaded the gun and tucked it into the spacious front pocket of his new hoodie, stuffing some additional bullets into his jeans. Then he spent a few minutes flipping through Besithia’s wallet and moving all the pertinent cards into his own. 

He had a vague idea of what awaited them at the border - at least two soldiers, a request for documentation he wasn’t willing to give, and possibly some MTs. If they didn’t buy his Besithia’s-asshole-son routine like they had in Gralea, he would just have to resort to violence. For Noctis’s sake.

Armed and ready, Prompto got back into the car and grimly drove the remaining few miles to the Niflheim border, heart already starting to beat faster in anticipation of whatever was to come.

The checkpoint between Niflheim and Tenebrae was an imposingly large cinderblock guardhouse that cars had to pass through. The building was built on both sides of the road and overtop of it, too. When Prompto pulled up, two guards in full armour, carrying automatic machine guns appeared - at the rear of the car, one one each side. A third guard sat in a glass-fronted booth built into the side of the wall on the driver’s side of the car. He could also see before him a rectangle of rising green mountains topped with blue sky - the freedom of Tenebrae - blocked from him by a series of retractable metal bollards set into the ground. 

Nervously, Prompto drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, feeling the weight of the gun against his stomach whenever his body shifted. It was torture to see freedom in front of him, yet know there was still a chance he and Noctis wouldn’t reach it.

The border control agent opened a small rectangle of glass in front of her, sliding a metal tray towards Prompto with a bored expression. “Identification and Tenebrae entrance paperwork, please.”

Heart skipping a beat, Prompto affixed a scowl to his face before rolling the window down. “I have a diplomatic visa,” he said snobbishly, pulling it out of his wallet with what he hoped looked like ease. As he set the visa in the metal tray, face-down so no one could read Besithia’s name, he did notice that the little glass window opened such that he could easily puncture the guard’s lung if his aim was any good. 

As Prompto fidgeted, the guard took the visa, giving him an irritated sigh.

“Identification, please.”

Prompto raised his eyebrows, slipping the wallet into the front pocket of his hoodie, where it rested against the barrel of the pistol. “You don’t know who I am? I should have known Tenebrae would be a total fucking backwater.”

“We’re from Niflheim, sir,” the guard in the booth informed him. “And we need to see some identification for yourself and the other passenger of the vehicle, regardless of your rank. This barrier will not be raised otherwise. It’s policy, sir. I could scan your personal identity codeprint if you would prefer,” they added, their eyes flicking to the barcode on his wrist.

“It’s fine, you can have my ID,” Prompto said, his face blank and his stomach churning. He could tell from the guard’s tone of voice that there was no way to argue his way out of this now. He reached into his hoodie…

…And pulled out the gun, immediately loosing one shot through the opening in the glass window. The bullet struck true, and the guard was thrown to the ground with a thud and a scream, a rosette of blood blooming over their chest. But Prompto was already scrabbling to get the window up as the two guards behind him opened fire on the car. Glass cracked as bullets spiderwebbed the back windshield with cracks, but didn’t pierce the interior of the car.

He had to find a way to lower that barrier. Throwing open the door to provide himself some cover, he saw the right-hand guard firing on him, her expression dark. Her bullet hit the edge of the car door right in front of him and Prompto almost jumped back in fear. He didn’t know if she was aiming to kill or to maim, and he wasn’t going to wait to find out. Heart hammering in his chest, he ducked behind the door, aimed hastily, and fired again. 

As she tried to evade it, Prompto’s bullet hit her in the shoulder, throwing her backwards. But the left-hand guard was still firing on the back windshield, and at this rate he would break through the glass before Prompto could get him. 

Rolling back into the car, Prompto made a noise of frustrated panic as he slammed the door shut and dumped the gun into the cupholder. If it was either be shot or try and ram the barrier down, he would take his chances with the barrier. 

“Fuck,” he moaned as he threw the car into reverse, then slammed on the accelerator. The engine roared as the two guards dove to get out of the way, including the one Prompto had shot who was now back on her feet again, favouring her shoulder. He felt something clip against the side of the car but didn’t stop to find out what it was. Both guards swivelled to follow his movements as he backed the car up as far as he could go, and Prompto knew it was only a matter of time before they started aiming for his tires. 

More cracks exploded over the front windshield, making Prompto almost cried out in alarm, and gritted his teeth instead. Then, he put the car back into drive, steeled himself, and slammed on the accelerator again. 

The screen where the backing camera normally displayed a video feed read, “Warning: Collision imminent.” Prompto didn’t even read it. The metal pillars in front of him loomed. In that moment, Prompto wondered if he and Noctis were both going to die here. No time to reach out to Noctis, no time to speak. If Prompto opened his mouth now, all that would come out was swearing or screaming.

“Warning: Collision imminent. Engaging turbo mode.”

The sound of the engine became a roar, and the car jumped ahead with a sudden, uncontrollable burst of speed. He didn’t even have time to brace for impact as they slammed into the barrier full force. The metal columns gave way into the ground, even as Prompto and Noctis were thrown back against their seats. Prompto’s cry of pain was abruptly cut off as all the breath was slapped right out of his lungs. It was all he could do to hang on to the steering wheel as the front of the car also gave way and things crunched and snapped between the hood, the bonnet crumpling in spite of its internal reinforcements. His foot had slipped from the accelerator, but the car didn’t stop. 

Prompto’s brain was scrambling to keep up with what had happened. He was dazed, shaking his head and trying to focus on the trees which were blurring past as the car plowed down the road with its turbo-powered engine, bent and broken bumper dragging on the ground in a shower of sparks and a gratingly loud noise. It was this that snapped the world back into clarity. As he came back into himself his focus came with the awareness that the car was going to fast and he didn’t know how to make it stop, the engine revving in bursts like the growls of a jungle cat. 

Not only that, but when he glanced up at the rearview mirror, he saw a car pulling out of the guardhouse behind him in pursuit.

Noctis’s voice cut through Prompto’s rising panic and terror. 

“Prompto - what’s happening? What are you doing?” he said groggily.

“They’re after us,” Prompto said tersely, unable to take his eyes from the road for even a second. His hands were completely locked around the wheel, his every muscle straining as if he could physically make the car go faster. Noctis struggled to glance behind them, and caught sight of not one but two cars which were following them now.

The road ahead was straight and did not branch before it entered the trees, and Prompto had no idea where it led. Their only option for escape was to outrun their pursuers - if their battered car could hold together long enough, if the rapidly-emptying gas tank didn’t drain dry and leave them stranded. On either side of the road were empty green fields, which broke into scattered clumps of trees as they approached the forested mountains. 

“Go off-road,” Noctis said urgently. “Get out of here!”

“But we’re headed for a forest,” Prompto argued.

“There’s a service road - on the right - it doesn’t matter, just go off the road!”

The vehicles behind them seemed to be closing in, and Noctis’s voice spurred Prompto into action. Wrenching the wheel to the right, he sent them careening into the fields beside the road. 

“Go right, go right, go right, go right,” Noctis was shouting, encouraging Prompto to twist the wheel harder. The car bounced up and down on the uneven terrain, then jerked hard enough to slam Noctis and Prompto back in their seats again, making both of them cry out in surprise and pain. When Prompto glanced in the rearview mirror, he saw that the bumper had been completely ripped away and was lying on the ground behind them. The car was literally falling to pieces around them as they ran. 

Prompto’s stomach clenched. He felt light-headed with fear, but bit his lip and forced himself to keep steering. They had reached the sparse clumps of trees, and the car was going so fast it took all of his concentration to avoid them. The only thought in his mind was just steer, steer, just hang on and survive until they got away. The forest loomed closer.

“It’s there!” Noctis shouted. 

For a moment, Prompto didn’t see it. Then they practically ran right over it - a road that was little more than some bald ruts in the earth. Prompto had to jerk the wheel again to keep them from tearing away into the fields again, nearly hitting a tree as he over-corrected. 

“Go left,” Noctis instructed suddenly, and Prompto took a fork in the road. The trees clustered in thickly around the completely unkept road. The car was rattling and shaking like it was about to fall apart. Their pursuers were completely hidden from view now by the trees, so Prompto only prayed they could get far enough away to be able to hide when the car finally broke down. 

It was then that he remembered he didn’t know how to make the car stop, and he moaned aloud in despair. Noctis said nothing, clutching the door handle with one hand and his seatbelt with the other. Overhanging branches where whipping the roof of the car. His stomach churned, and he felt like he was going to throw up. The car filled with the vibration of the car as it bounced over ruts in the earth, the background roar of the runaway engine, and Prompto and Noctis’s fearful breaths. Both of them were just grimly holding on. 

Tree branches parted, and Prompto saw that they were approaching a stream. Too late, he noticed the crumbling holes in the concrete bridge they were about to cross. He stomped down hard on the ineffectual brakes, but the bridge was already giving way beneath them. Prompto screamed. The car broke completely through the bridge and slammed to a stop in the bed of a stream.

For a moment, the forest was still, the horrible growling of the turbo engine now silenced. The smashed bridge crumbled and gave way still further, raining chunks of concrete and twisted pieces of metal down around the car. 

Inside the car, the airbags had all inflated and then deflated immediately afterwards. Prompto was frozen in shock, his head ringing. His whole entire face felt broken, and his body strangled by the seatbelt which had dug across it and burned. He raised his hand to his face and gingerly prodded it, wincing in pain but feeling no blood. But never mind that now - he was alive. Prompto undid his seatbelt, practically falling forward as it released.

“Noctis, Noctis,” he said, feeling panic thumping in his chest as he turned towards his friend. 

“I’m alive,” Noctis groaned.

Prompto nearly wept with relief at hearing Noctis’s voice and seeing his eyes open, face creased in pain but not apparently bleeding from anywhere. 

“You’re okay,” Prompto said, voice raw. “Noct, I’m so sorry, I-”

“We’re alive,” Noctis cut him off. “That’s good enough for me.”

“No,” Prompto said, tears filling his eyes. “This is all my fault.”

“No it’s not,” Noctis said, sounding at a loss for something else to say. 

“But it is,” Prompto said in a trembling voice, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes as hard as possible to keep the tears from coming out. “If I got you out of Zegnautus earlier, we could have had a plan. We could have stolen an airship. We could have done everything different than this. But now we don’t even have a chance.”

“No, no,” Noctis was saying, his voice full of concern. “I’m sorry, Prompto. This is my fault. I shouldn’t have said what I said earlier. Please, I, I - don’t cry. It’s gonna be okay.”

Prompto shook his head, unable to stop his tears. “But what if we die out here? What if they catch us again?” he sobbed.

“We won’t die,” Noctis said, his voice strong.

“Wh-what?” Prompto said, trying to understand. Noctis reached out and started pushing the car door open. His face was pale, and his arms were trembling, but he managed to open the door about a foot before he was restrained by the seatbelt. 

Noctis turned back to Prompto. “You better not be giving up on me,” he said, a challenge in his voice. He still looked totally pale, and Prompto realised it must be a huge strain for him just to make himself to stay awake.

Sniffing hard, Prompto wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He wouldn’t, couldn’t give up if Noctis was still counting on him. If Noctis could force himself to keep going, then Prompto would too. Slowly, his tears stopped. His body ached all over.

They had to get the fuck away from there. 

“Thanks, Noct,” he said quietly. Noctis rewarded him with the tired flash of a smile. 

“Yeah,” he said softly, and that was enough.

This escape attempt was now officially a disaster, but Prompto knew he couldn’t give up. Not when Noctis was counting on him still. He dragged his aching body from the car, then Noctis’s wheelchair from the backseat. Helping Noctis out of the car rapidly exhausted him. By the time they had gotten him into the wheelchair, he was falling asleep again, leaving Prompto essentially alone to bundle their meagre possessions into the lab coat and set it on Noctis’s lap. 

It was then that he realised they were in a ditch, and the ground was too uneven for the wheelchair to be at all usable. Somehow, he and Noctis had to make it to the end of the road. Prompto would just have to carry him. 

But his body was so weak it was practically shaking. He made one attempt to lift Noctis onto his back, then fell to his knees beside him, exhausted. Even if the car remained hidden in this ravine, and he and Noctis weren’t found by the Niflheim army, he didn’t know where the closest town was. And now, he didn’t have the strength in his body to find out.

It was at that moment he heard an engine rumbling as a vehicle approached.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was a struggle to finish editing this chapter, but we made it kids. Infinite thanks to my wonderful beta, E. Action is NOT my genre. Thank you also to my friends who shared with me their personal stories of panic attacks, as well as the people of Reddit who provided detailed descriptions of them. Bear with me - the next chapter plays to my strengths slightly more than this one does. 
> 
> In the future when Prompto is a celebrity, the cashier from the gas station in Ueltham will tell everyone she meets about how he came to her gas station once and complimented her daughter's ice hockey team.
> 
> I am having problems with figuring out what to name the chapters, as you can tell.
> 
> Comments always welcome!


	4. In Which Prompto And Noctis Seek Medical Attention

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **  
>  Please hover over this text for chapter warnings (contains spoilers)  
>  **

“Mr. Victorium?”

These words, spoken in a cool Tenebrean accent, permeated Noctis’s consciousness. His eyelashes fluttered, but he didn’t wake up. Mr. Victorium was not him. There was no need for him to pay attention, even though the voice was very close by, perhaps even right beside him. 

“Mr. Victorium?”

Noctis rolled over. 

“Noctis?” the speaker tried. 

_Aww, dammit,_ Noctis thought. Then, as his brain functions started kicking back in, he was hit with a wave of confusion and disorientation. Where was he? Where had he fallen asleep?

Noctis’s eyes shot open, and he tried to stick one hand out to summon a weapon, but found himself tangled in bed clothes. His wrist was also covered in bandages, likely to hide his barcode - or maybe it had been injured. There was a man looming over him, a man in green scrubs with buckwheat brown hair and glasses - doctor, his brain helpfully supplied. Noctis’s eyes darted around the room. The bed he was in, with its white sheets and beige blanket, the linoleum floor, the ghastly fluorescent lighting, the sink in the corner, and the faint smell of piss and antiseptic permeating the room were all telling him the same thing - _hospital_. 

But not Zegnautus Keep. As he realised that, everything came rushing back. 

_Waking up. Prompto. Killing Besithia. The rest stop in Niflheim. The car crash._

Noctis was at least mildly surprised to be here - he had half expected to wake up imprisoned, or to not wake up at all.

His ice hockey hoodie was folded and sitting on the chair that was waiting beside the bed. The battered wheelchair he had been using yesterday was nowhere in sight. And his whole body ached, especially his back, which was throbbing. But at least he was alive.

“Noctis… Mr. Victorium,” the doctor began, and Noctis turned his attention back to the man, wondering if he was supposed to know his name. In spite of having just slept for three straight years, Noctis was still tired, and it was difficult to focus. He wondered where the name “Victorium” had come from. It would be nice to know their cover story.

“I am Dr. Scientia. I apologise for waking you. I’m currently doing morning rounds,” the doctor explained. To Noctis, that was a pretty weak justification for bothering him, but okay. 

“A nurse will be here soon to bring you breakfast,” Dr. Scientia continued. Noctis grimaced, knowing what that meant. Given how weak he was now, that nurse was probably going to have to spoon-feed him like Prompto had in the parking lot in Niflheim.

“Thanks…” Noctis sighed. The doctor tilted his head in question, but Noctis didn’t bother explaining his irritation aloud. 

After a moment, Dr. Scientia folded his hands and said, “I have a few routine questions to ask you. Just to check your memory and alertness.” 

“Sure,” said Noctis, though he really just wanted to go back to sleep.

“What’s your name?” Dr. Scientia asked. 

“Noctis Victorium,” Noctis said - that one was easy.

“Your birthday?”

“August 30th, ME 736.”

“Do you know where you are now?”

“Tenebrae?”

“Penumbra, to be specific,” the doctor informed him. “In what hospital were you previously being treated?”

“Uh…” Noctis said. He couldn’t very well say ‘Zegnautus Keep’, so instead he said, “Somewhere in Gralea?”

“I see,” the doctor said, making a note on Noctis’s chart. “And who accompanied you here last night?”

“My friend, Prompto,” Noctis said, hoping that was the right name to give. 

“What is the nature of your relationship with this man?” Dr. Scientia asked. Noctis frowned. These questions seemed sort of weird. The doctor’s tone was aloof, his body language closed. Noctis’s eyes flicked to his face, but he couldn’t discern anything past a politely neutral expression.

“What?” he said bluntly.

Dr. Scientia sighed. “We need to know in regards to visitation rights,” he said, and Noctis decided he was over-reacting. Maybe he was just on edge because, well, he was used to being in captivity.

“He’s my emergency contact,” said Noctis, relaxing back against the pillows. “Let him in to see me if he asks. I don’t have any other family.” He coughed, his throat getting dry from all the talking.

“Of course,” the doctor said smoothly. He went to the sink in the corner of the room, filled a paper cup, and brought it back to Noctis.

“Here, would you like some water?” 

Noctis internally seethed at his own helplessness, but accepted a drink from Dr. Scientia’s hands. The cool water soothed his throat. Now, if only he could go back to sleep. 

Just then, someone knocked at the door to the room. 

“Yes?” the doctor answered, setting Noctis’s cup down on the nightstand. 

“It’s me, Prompto,” came the answer, and Noctis immediately brightened up. 

“Come in,” Dr. Scientia said. Prompto came into the room, peering from the doctor to Noctis inquisitively. He was still wearing his ice hockey hoodie, with his Zegnautus Keep lab coat draped over one arm, and his face was sporting quite a few bruises. Otherwise, he seemed to be doing much better than the last time Noctis had talked to him.

“Hey, you’re already awake,” he said, upon seeing Noctis’s eyes were open. “Hope I’m not interrupting something. I just got discharged.”

“It’s quite alright,” the doctor replied. To Noctis, he said, “I’ll see you later, Mr. Victorium. Rest well.”

After Noctis thanked him, he left, and Noctis and Prompto were alone again. Clearing his throat, Prompto sat down in the chair next to Noctis’s bed, shifting the hoodie that had been sitting there to the back of the chair.

“Are you feeling okay?” Noctis said. 

“Nothing’s broken,” said Prompto, leaning over conspiratorially and resting his elbows on his knees. “How about you? Feeling okay?”

“I’m really tired,” Noctis admitted, and Prompto nodded.

“Yeah, it’s gonna take you a while to get used to being awake,” he said. “Most people who come out of a coma can’t keep their eyes open for more than a few minutes at a time for a couple of days after they first wake up. I don’t know how long you were talking to that doctor, but looks to me like you’re actually doing pretty good so far.”

Their eyes locked, and Noctis had a feeling Prompto was remembering the same thing as him: the moment that he’d woken, his magic rippling through the halls of Zegnautus Keep in a blue-white tide. That magic burst had faded, but Noctis had a feeling it was at least partly responsible for his enhanced ability to stay awake. 

But it wasn’t safe to discuss that aloud here, so Noctis simply shrugged. “It’s fine. You gonna tell me how we got here?”

Prompto leaned in again, his voice kept down low. “You remember the crash, right?” he said, and Noctis nodded. “After you went to sleep, a car came by. I thought it was gonna be - you know, soldiers. It wasn’t. It was a guy who lived up in the hills. Said his name was Curtis Kiss. He was out for a hike and heard us driving through. He was all like, ‘I knew that rickety old bridge would burst out from under somebody one of these days.’”

Noctis smirked at Prompto’s attempted imitation of the old Tenebrean man’s voice.

“We got to talking, and he told me the reason the road was in disrepair was because he is trying to get his house fall off the map so the Empire can’t find it. He seemed like a cool dude, so I told him about how we’re criminals. He said he would bury the car and then drove us to this hospital.”

Prompto leaned in close enough for Noctis to feel his breath on his cheek as he spoke. “ _This hospital is affiliated with the Resistance_ ,” he said. Drawing back, he raised his eyebrows to ask if Noctis had understood.

Noctis just nodded - he knew what the Resistance was. After the war had officially ended and Noctis and his friends had been running around engaging the Nifs in guerrilla warfare, the Tenebreans had taken a different tack: quiet, underground resistance to occupation through such underhanded means as spying and sabotage. Luna had been their secret leader. Noctis hoped that she was still.

“Can we trust that information?” Noctis said, his voice also low.

Prompto shrugged. “If Mr. Kiss wanted to get us in trouble, he could have taken us straight to the nearest military base and collected a bounty on us. I would’ve shot him before that, but he didn’t know I was armed.”

“I guess,” Noctis said, wishing he could have seen the guy for himself. He trusted Prompto, but had no idea how good a judge of character he was. 

Prompto sighed. “Look, I know it seems risky. But you’re gonna need a couple of months of physical therapy, and this hospital is our best shot. I really think we should just stay here.”

“For _months_?” Noctis groaned. “Here? But I hate hospitals, and that doctor is so weird.”

Prompto laughed. “Well…” he started, looking down at his hands bashfully, “If I get a job… I might be able to get a place for us. I could take care of you, easy. I mean, I’ve done it for years. You’d have to come here for the physical therapy, but that’s not so bad, right?” Prompto paused, biting his lip. “Is it weird for me to ask you this? I mean, we don’t really know each other.”

“I know you,” Noctis assured him. And truthfully, he felt as though he did. Reading Prompto’s dream-texts all those years had been like keeping up a long-distance relationship. Prompto had spilt everything to him - descriptions of the photos he’d taken and liked, his fear of bugs and small places, his love/hate relationship with spicy food that sometimes gave him heartburn, his secret hatred of Besithia and his brothers, his deeper fears about being a bad person for working at the Keep even though he saw no life for himself outside of it, his seemingly impossible wishes for a future where he could just take photos and have a couple of pets… _everything_. Of course, meeting him in real life had been different than how Noctis had pictured it. But in spite of everything that had happened yesterday, Prompto had saved his life and kept him free by getting them to this hospital.

Prompto was his friend. And he didn’t have anyone else right now.

Noctis could see a problem with his plan, though. “Where are you going to work?” he asked.

Prompto grinned. “Here in this hospital, where else?” he said. “I’m qualified to be a nurse. I got the impression yesterday that they probably won’t ask to see a degree. But if they do, you can always tell them how good I am with coma patients.”

Noctis laughed, feeling long-unused muscles in his abdomen protest as he did so. But it wasn’t an altogether unpleasant kind of burn - it felt like parts of him were coming back to life. 

“You’re serious, right?” he asked, and Prompto put his hand over his heart in mock offence. 

“Of course I am,” he said, sticking out his tongue, and Noctis nearly laughed again, out of sheer delighted surprise. Today’s rested, safe Prompto was such a contrast to the tearful, panicky Prompto from yesterday. He was animated and open, totally refreshing compared to the dead-eyed MTs and stern soldiers Noctis had been surrounded by after his capture, and all the grim and desperate people he’d been surrounded by before. It was possible he was putting on the smile to make Noctis feel better - but if so, it was working.

“Okay, then,” Noctis said, and found that his voice was faltering. The tide of sleep was pulling him back under, making it difficult to think of things to say or focus on anything that was more than two feet away.

“Uh… you alright?” Prompto said.

“Tired,” Noctis admitted again. 

Prompto stood. “No problem, I’m out of here. Gonna go talk to the hospital director and tell them I want a job. See you later, Noct.”

He was too tired to voice any objections to Prompto’s plan, but Noctis was still worried about that old man from the woods sending the local Niflheim army after them if they stuck around here. For now, he would just have to trust Prompto again since he didn’t have the strength to change the situation. He was sinking back into a blissful haze of sleep when the door opened again.

“Mr. Victorium?” Dr. Scientia asked, and Noctis wished he were at full health so he could get out of bed and strangle the man for constantly interrupting his sleep. He had a feeling that would be something of a theme for the duration of his visit here.

“What?” he snapped, forcing his eyes open.

“Ah, I’m sorry. I had hoped to catch you before you fell asleep again. Well, I will save the rest of my questions for later,” the doctor said, turning to leave. “And don’t worry about Prompto. We’re well equipped to deal with his kind at this hospital. We’ll be sure to take care of him for you.”

Something about Dr. Scientia’s tone triggered Noctis’s suspicion again. His eyes opened wider. “Wait,” he said, and the doctor paused in the doorway. Had Dr. Scientia really said he knew how too deal with Prompto’s “kind”? Had Noctis imagined the threat concealed behind those words, or was he overreacting again?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but Prompto saved my life,” Noctis said firmly, trying to keep his voice calm and clear. It was getting hard to think, and he loosely clenched his fists in the blanket to try and ground himself in reality. It didn’t work, mostly because his body still wasn’t responding to his thoughts very well.

“He saved your life,” Dr. Scientia said blankly. The man had an incredible poker face - Noctis had no idea what he was thinking, if he thought Prompto saving Noctis was a good thing or a bad.

“I’d be _dead_ in _Gralea_ if it wasn’t for him,” Noctis said, voice rising in frustration. He saw a look of shock and understanding cross Dr. Scientia’s face, before he said something incomprehensible and dashed madly out the door. Noctis almost managed to feel anxious, but instead, he simply fell back asleep.

—

After leaving Noctis’s side, Prompto returned to the nurse’s station and politely asked for directions to the director’s office. It felt refreshing to no longer have to fake that obnoxious Besithia persona he had faked during the escape. For most of his life, really. He never wanted to use it again.

Yesterday when they had arrived at the hospital, Mr. Kiss had said some weird phrase to the receptionist: “Do you remember the sylleblossoms of Tenebrae?” to which they had replied, “You’ll find they’re blooming still.” Prompto, in his desperate exhaustion, had been confused and unsure of whether to play along or to start shooting people. But after he and Noctis had been taken to a private examination room, Mr. Kiss had explained the situation - that Prompto and Noctis were on the run from the Empire and both needed care - to a doctor named Redmund, who had been very sympathetic, promising to personally inform the director of their situation so that they could rest and recover in safety.

It was then that Prompto had gotten the idea to work at the hospital. He was also interested in helping the Resistance, giving them all the information he could remember from his time at Zegnautus Keep. If only he hadn’t thrown Besithia’s phone into a river, he could have given them that, too.

These plans for the future filled his mind he walked to the director’s office. It seemed to be completely on the other side of the building, and isolated in a quiet, more corporate area. Once he was inside, he stood in parade rest against the wall by the door as he waited.

The office was sparse, with none of the elegant and homey Tenebrean touches Prompto had seen in the rest of the hospital - no sylleblossoms painted on the moulding, no floral patterned curtains. There was little furniture save for the director’s desk and some filing cabinets wedged into the corner. The blinds were drawn and the floor light was turned off, leaving the room lit by the same garish fluorescent lights as the rest of the hospital. The walls were painted white, although the one behind him was decorated with some kind of weird pattern of random grey plaster daubs that Prompto thought was ugly.

As he waited, fidgeting from boredom, Prompto gathered from a nameplate on the desk that the name of the hospital director was Cadea Shivani. 

Just as he noticed that, a woman - presumably director Shivani - walked in from the side entrance, accompanied by two ancient, series C Magiteks. She sat down, the MTs flanking either side of her chair. These ones were from the class Prompto should have been in, had he been turned into an MT instead of one of Besithia’s “sons”. They were most notable for having very little demon, and quite a lot of human. Series C MTs were little more than slightly possessed, brainwashed humans shoved into full-body armour. How any had survived this long without completely breaking down was a mystery to Prompto. Was this hospital secretly or illegally doing research on MTs, or even producing some of their own?

Prompto didn’t like it, but he himself had participated in MT research for years. He was in no position to criticise the hospital for doing the same thing. Their presence made him uneasy, but it wasn’t like he wasn’t used to it.

“I’m Prompto Argentum. Nice to meet you,” Prompto said, inclining his head slightly. “You might have heard about me from Dr. Redmund yesterday?”

“Indeed I did,” Director Shivani said. “What can I do for you?” Her tone was polite and welcoming, but her expression was sharp. It reminded Prompto of Besithia’s gaze, so transparently did it seem to cut through him - and she didn’t even know him yet.

“I’m interested in working at this hospital,” Prompto said, spreading his stance, crossing his arms, and tilting his head slightly to affect a casual but controlled kind of posture. He’d never had to get a job by himself before, and he was trying to act professional. Hopefully his nerves weren’t showing, and he wouldn’t be found wanting. “I was trained as a biomedical engineer and later as a nurse, but I was forced to leave the position before I could complete my training. I was also involved with genetic research. I don’t have any of my certification paperwork with me, but I’d be happy to demonstrate what I can do.”

“What facility were you employed at?” the director asked. Prompto swallowed. He supposed it was a reasonable question, but he didn’t want to admit to having worked at Zegnautus Keep. 

“Mr. Argentum, if you intend to work at this hospital, then I will need your full co-operation,” Director Shivani said. “I need to know something of your background before I entrust patients to your care.”

“I worked for the Empire,” Prompto said reluctantly. He was hoping she would get the hint, as well as the one he’d dropped by saying he’d left his previous facility “in a hurry”, and remember that he was a fugitive criminal… hiding from Niflheim… and stop asking him for sensitive personal information, already. “Noctis, the ex-coma patient I brought with me to this hospital, was under my care for three years and can vouch for what I can do. I mean to co-operate with you, but that’s all I can really tell you.” 

Dr. Shivani’s eyes narrowed, and unease prickled at the back of Prompto’s neck.

“I see,” she replied. “But this effectively means we have no way of checking your credentials aside from your word.” Her eyes flicked to his wrist, and she raised her eyebrows. “Wouldn’t we be able to view your certification status by scanning your identification marking?”

She was talking about the barcode. _What the hell is she playing at?_ Prompto thought, his eyes widening. She knew that he and Noctis were fugitives, so why would she even think of scanning his marking? There had to be some kind of miscommunication here. Either that or he had been lied too, and she was working for the Empire. 

Realising that, a shiver ran down Prompto’s spine. He didn’t care which possibility it was. He wanted to extricate himself from this situation as fast as humanly possible.

Edging towards the door, Prompto said, “Uh… I don’t feel comfortable having it scanned. If you consider it necessary, then I will just have to seek employment elsewhere. I’m sorry to have bothered you.” 

The director folded her arms, too. The atmosphere in the room began to resemble less of a civil conversation and more of a stand-off. If he hadn’t known it before, he knew it now - he was in some deep trouble.

“Right,” the director decided, snapping her fingers. Immediately, both MTs raised their guns, pointing them at Prompto. “Your wrist, please.” The way she accented the word ‘please’ made it very clear that this was not a request, but an order. 

She _had_ to be working for the Empire. No one else would have any reason to uncover his true identity. Making a snap decision, Prompto changed tactics. “Or what? You’ll be responsible for shooting one of Besithia’s own sons? I think not,” he scoffed. His hands twitched for a hold of the Magnum that was stashed in his pocket, but he wasn’t really keen to make any sudden movements with two guns trained on him and no cover whatsoever.

Without even waiting for a word from the director, the right-hand MT fired off a round directly into the wall beside Prompto’s head. 

It was then that Prompto realised - the weird plaster pattern on the wall wasn’t a plaster pattern at all. It was covered-over bullet holes. 

_Shit._

Prompto’s stomach was churning with anxiety now, and he was certain he was sweating. All of his senses were screaming at him to get the hell out of there, but he couldn’t. This was worse than being caught by Besithia, back at Zegnautus Keep. At least Prompto knew what Besithia had wanted from him. This woman and her dysfunctional MTs were a complete mystery. She didn’t like him when he was a fugitive, and she didn’t like him when he was a Besithia. Was she just some kind of psychopath? The amount of bullet holes certainly would indicate so. 

“Your arm,” the director said, making a ‘come here’ gesture with one hand. Feeling as if he had no other choice, Prompto hesitated for a moment before gritting his teeth, stepping forward, and scanning his bar code at the screen that was anchored to the desk on a pivoting arm. The green light on the side lit up as the scan was accepted - as Prompto had known it would be. The MTs swivelled towards him menacingly, so Prompto quickly stepped away from the desk.

Prompto was in deep trouble now. If this woman didn’t kill him, the Empire would be showing up soon. He had to get himself and Noctis out of here as fast as possible.

The director used the pivoting arm to swing the screen towards her, and quickly read Prompto’s identification information to herself. While she was distracted, Prompto considered diving for the door or trying to disarm the MTs. But with two of them, here was no way he could make it without being shot. He was trapped. 

“So,” the director said, pushing the screen aside and folding her hands on top of the desk. “You were telling the truth.”

“Of course I was,” Prompto said, hoping it was the right answer. 

“You vile piece of shit,” the director said. “I don’t want murdering Niflheim scum in my hospital. This is a place of healing, not a place for your twisted experiments.” 

Prompto instantly realised that he had made a huge mistake. Somewhere between Curtis Kiss and Cadea Shivani, someone had assumed that Prompto was still working for the Empire. Admitting to being a Besithia had been admitting to his guilt.

Dropping all vestiges of his bossy Imperial persona, Prompto held up his hands in a gesture of appeal, shook his head, and said, “No, no, no. Wait a minute. Can I just explain how I got here real quick?”

The director snorted. “I don’t really care,” she said, opening her desk drawer. From it, she pulled a pistol - it seemed she wanted to kill him personally.

One thought flashed across Prompto’s mind, then: If he died, _who would take care of Noctis?_ He cast his mind desperately around to think of something to say that would change the director’s mind, but nothing was coming. 

“I killed Verstael Besithia,” Prompto blurted out, but his words were lost. At that moment, the door beside him flew open and slammed into the wall, and the doctor who had been in Noctis’s room - Dr. Scientia - burst into the office. He was out of breath and sweating, as if he had run from one end of the hospital to another. 

“Wait - just wait a minute now -” the doctor panted, bracing one arm against the wall. Setting the pistol down, the director stood, resting her fingertips on the desk and leaning towards Dr. Scientia angrily. 

“What is it?” she snapped. Meanwhile, all of Prompto’s attention had been diverted to the gun that had been set down on the desk. If he grabbed it in one hand and held the Magnum in the other, he could threaten both the director and Dr. Scientia simultaneously-

“Stand down,” Dr. Scientia said, and the MTs lowered their weapons. Instinctively, Prompto took the opening and shoved his hand into the pocket of his hoodie to grab hold of the Magnum’s grip. The MTs reacted by reaching for their own weapons, and Prompto froze. For a split second, he and the Magiteks faced each other, each waiting for the other to react. 

“Gentlemen!” Dr. Scientia snapped, bringing the MTs back to attention. There was no way those things were real MTs. They were far too reactive to be robots. They had to be humans inside old Magitek armour.

“What is going on, Dr. Scientia?” Director Shivani asked. Prompto’s hand was still on his gun, but he didn’t want to resort to violence if the situation could be resolved peacefully. Still, Prompto’s heart beat in his chest as he waited for the doctor’s response.

“I spoke with Noctis Victorium - the patient this clone brought in last night,” Dr. Scientia said, gesturing at Prompto as he said _this clone_. “He told me that Prompto saved his life,” the doctor continued. “Unfortunately, I failed to get any precise details from him, as he was unable to stay awake long enough to explain what he meant. But, he said something which I believe implies that he was rescued from somewhere in Gralea, not kidnapped, as we first suspected.”

They thought that Prompto had kidnapped Noctis as a test subject or a prisoner and was planning to stash him at this hospital? No wonder they had hated Prompto on sight and wanted to kill him. 

“Are you certain?” the director asked, and Dr. Scientia responded in the affirmative. Turning to Prompto, the doctor said simply, “Explain.”

Swallowing nervously, Prompto nodded. “Noctis and I… escaped from Zegnautus Keep,” he began hesitantly. The director and the doctor looked at each other. “The two of us are friends. We hate the Empire. We’re on the side of the Resistance,” Prompto said. “I have information that could help you - important information, straight from Zegnautus Keep.” It was true, but it might make the difference between life and death if the director believed him.

“You said something about Besithia earlier,” the director said.

“Yeah, uh… he’s dead,” said Prompto. He figured at this point it would be better to be honest in case they interrogated him and Noctis separately. “Noctis killed him. When we were escaping, I mean.”

Dr. Scientia pulled out his phone, and started tapping at the screen to read his notifications. “We did receive a message this morning, stating that there had been an event at Zegnautus Keep, and that we were to be on alert for a rogue clone unit,” he said. “I don’t recall it saying anything about Besithia, however.”

The director started up. “I wish you had told me about this earlier, Dr. Scientia.” She swung the screen Prompto had scanned his barcode on towards herself again.

“I thought you already knew…” Dr. Scientia said mildly. The director tapped a few buttons, and the screen gave a notification alert. The director’s eyes narrowed.

“Looks like it could have been him,” she said. Looking up, she gestured at the MTs. They nodded to her before returning to the side room they had originally appeared from, leaving the doctor, the director, and Prompto alone in the room. Prompto breathed a sigh of relief and sagged back against the wall, finally releasing the grip of the Magnum.

“Will you let me go?” Prompto asked, forcing himself to straighten up again, though his knees were still a little weak. Immediate threat overcome. Now there was only the Magitek Management System to worry about.

The director looked grim. “You might want to see this,” she said, turning the screen towards him. Prompto saw his identity profile, laid out how it always was whenever he scanned his barcode. Except that in the centre of the page was a pop-up alert message, which had no doubt appeared at the time of the alert notification, just moments ago.

“THIS SUBJECT IS WANTED FOR CRIMES AGAINST THE EMPIRE,” the text read. Below that, it detailed some more of his crimes: “Additionally, for aiding and abetting a fugitive, and destruction and theft of Imperial property.” 

And under the text was a logo bearing the letters ‘MMS’. _Damn._

“I’ve got to get out of here,” Prompto said, feeling his heart rate speed up again. With a high profile case such as his, the entire System had probably been notified as soon as his barcode had been scanned. Niflheim soldiers could be on their way to the hospital right this very moment.

“Stay calm,” the director said, standing. “This hospital has a panic room. I will take both you and Noctis there, and we will hide you for as long as necessary until it is safe.”

“Actually, Cadea,” Dr. Scientia said suddenly, “Prompto is right, and he must go. I will get him and Mr. Victorium to a safehouse.”

“Wait, no,” Prompto said, looking between Dr. Scientia and Director Shivani. “How do I know that I can-”

“Because you have no other choice; now _go_ ,” the director said, shooing them towards the door. 

As they left, Dr. Scientia paused in the doorway. 

“Madame Director,” he said, dipping his head towards her. And then he was gone, following Prompto out into the hall.

As they left, Prompto asked, “Why are you helping us?”

“It’s the least I can do, after allowing you to be placed in this situation,” Dr. Scientia said, not bothering to explain further. Prompto was still suspicious - he wasn’t going to make the mistake of trusting the wrong person again.

“Shouldn’t you stay at the hospital?” he insisted. But just then, the doctor took off at a brisk jog and didn’t reply. Prompto’s head was spinning as they ran through the hospital, heading right back to Noctis’s sickroom from whence they had come. On the way, they stopped to grab a wheelchair.

Inside the sickroom, a nurse was changing Noctis’s IV. 

“Get that out of him,” Dr. Scientia ordered. “We’re leaving.”

The nurse didn’t ask questions, instead moving rapidly to unhook Noctis from the IV and the heart monitor that had been attached to his finger. Dr. Scientia helped. Meanwhile, Prompto dragged Noctis’s new wheelchair to his bedside, then grabbed his hoodie and shoved it into the pocket on the back of the chair. Dr. Scientia tried to wake Noctis by saying his name and lightly shaking his shoulder, but Noctis was dead to the world. 

“Just put him in the chair,” Prompto said, hoping that Noctis would understand when he woke up why they had had to move him without his permission. Dr. Scientia and Prompto quickly got Noctis into the chair, Prompto stealing one of the hospital’s blankets and tossing it onto Noctis’s lap so Noctis could have it in the car. 

“Shit, we need a car,” Prompto blurted out. The nurse, who was just leaving, looked momentarily startled, but then he shrugged and left the room. 

“We’ll take mine,” said Dr. Scientia said, starting to wheel the still-sleeping Noctis towards the door. Pushing him out of the way, Prompto snatched the handles of the wheelchair from his hands and followed him outside.

“Why do you want to drive around with two fugitives so badly?” Prompto hissed, hoping no one was paying too much attention as they passed the nurses’ station. Even if all the hospital was in on the anti-Imperial conspiracy, the patients and their families might not be.

“I will explain momentarily,” the doctor said, tense.

Once they were in the privacy of the elevator, Dr. Scientia turned to Prompto, looked him dead in the eyes, and said, “I am unsure of how familiar you are with Tenebrean culture, but here we believe in the holy power of the Six gods. I believe the god Leviathan has ordered me to assist you in escaping from this hospital. I hope that reason is sufficient.” 

_Holy fucking shit_ , Prompto had no idea what to say to that. The goddess Leviathan wasn’t even one of his gods. The Empire held a massive disdain for all Six gods, whom they considered to be nothing more than superpowered pests. Reverence towards them was thought to be Lucian/Tenebraen pagan superstition. Was this kind of thing normal for worshippers of the Six?

“I - I -” Prompto stuttered, wishing Noctis were awake, because he might know what to do about this. Then, he remembered that Lucian royalty was supposed to be under direct protection of the god Bahamut, not that it did them much good. Maybe that was why Leviathan was helping them?

“I realise this is unusual,” Dr. Scientia said, and looked like he wanted to say more; but then the elevator doors opened with a _ping!_ , and they were greeted by a group of three people who apparently wanted to get into the elevator. Together, the five of them rode in silence to the ground floor of the hospital, Prompto’s heart beating so fast he could hardly breathe. 

By the time they had arrived at the ground floor, Prompto had decided to just say _Fuck it_. Maybe this Scientia guy was crazy, but the fact was Prompto didn’t have a car, and Director Shivani was right: he didn’t have time to doubt him. 

“Okay, fine, let’s just go,” Prompto said as they arrived at the sliding glass double doors that led out into the parking lot. He peered wildly around for any signs of Imperial vehicles or drop ships, but saw none - just an ocean of innocent civilian cars in various colourful shades. Fishing his keys out of a pouch carried underneath his scrubs, Dr. Scientia led Prompto through the parking lot until they reached a classic black mini, which the doctor quickly unlocked. 

“ _This_ is your car?” Prompto said, his voice rising in pitch with his anxiety, even as he opened the door to the backseat and threw Noctis’s blanket inside.

“Better than your non-existent one,” Dr. Scientia shot back, helping him get Noctis into the car, then folding up the wheelchair as Prompto ran around to the passenger side door. 

Just as Prompto’s fingers closed around the handle, he heard the telltale sound of engines. When he looked up, there was a clearly-marked Imperial airship approaching the parking lot - big, black, and bulbous. Prompto let out an involuntary moan of despair, but the airship passed right over their heads.

“Get in, you idiot!” Dr. Scientia snapped from the driver’s seat, apparently not as immune to stress as he appeared. “The airship dock is on the other side of the building,” he added more calmly. That was enough to unfreeze Prompto, who threw himself into the car and slammed the door. Almost before he had done so, Dr. Scientia floored the accelerator, and they peeled out of the parking lot as if the enemy were right behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout-out to Ilona-chan, who insisted I put the name Curtis Kiss somewhere in this fic. It's pronounced "Quiche", thank you very much.  
> Shout-out to my beta for suggesting all the Tenebrean place and people names. Thanks for your good work as always, my friend.
> 
> I'm thinking of changing the chapter title format to "In which so & so does such & such", so the title for this chapter would be "In which Noctis and Prompto seek medical attention." What do you guys think?
> 
> Comments always welcome!


	5. In Which Dr. Scientia Makes Some Assumptions

Ignis should have known. He should have known that Prompto Argentum and Noctis Victorium were the people Leviathan had foretold would come to him. Of all the stupid mistakes, taking Prompto for an enemy and then completely blowing his cover the very day after he arrived. As they drove away from the hospital, Ignis mentally berated himself again, though he knew he should have been focusing on his driving. And on the nervous-looking young man in the passenger seat, and the peacefully sleeping one in the back. 

“Where are we going?” Prompto said. Ignis made a tight, efficient turn onto the main road through town, which was lined with stores and small businesses housed in stately old brick and stone buildings. The hospital and accompanying university were the town’s largest institutions, and everything else in town was clustered around them. It wouldn’t take long for them to get out of Penumbra, but Ignis wanted miles between them and the hospital, just to be safe.

“Out of town,” Ignis said shortly, “And after that, I don’t entirely know. I have instructions on how to reach a safehouse in the event of an emergency, but they are rather vague. For now, all I can say is that we are going to the coast.”

Prompto nodded, not looking at Ignis. Out of the corner of his eye, Ignis could see that Prompto was peering at the sky, no doubt looking for drop ships. 

It was natural to be nervous in a getaway situation such as this, but for some reason Ignis found himself calm - perhaps he was having a delayed emotional reaction. Since he had joined the Resistance, he had imagined himself driving this route out of town quite literally hundreds of times, and could likely do it in his sleep. Still, Ignis felt for Prompto, who seemed much more anxious than him. 

“I must apologise for what happened this morning,” Ignis said, to distract him, though he was also being honest. 

“Huh?” Prompto said, momentarily turning away from the window. “You mean at the hospital? What’s even going on there?”

““The hospital is no longer under Niflheim control, as most public service institutions in Tenebrae are. Director Shivani and I blackmail our local officials in order to keep it that way,” Ignis explained. Although he hardly knew Prompto, he felt that he could trust him because he had dreamed that he could. “Aside from our various other activities, the director has personally killed a fair quantity of Niflheim military personnel. It was my fault that you were put into danger. I should have recognised you sooner, before you had to confront Director Shivani. I’ve always found her habits to be reckless,” he sighed.

“You don’t say,” Prompto muttered, raising one eyebrow.

Director Shivani had lost most of her family in the war. Those who survived the fighting were killed after the occupation began. But it seemed inappropriate to defend her hatred of the Empire to someone innocent she’d almost killed by mistake.

Prompto turned back to the window. “There are a bunch of airships going towards the hospital now…” 

Making a turn onto Ochre road, which led out of town, Ignis caught a glimpse of two of the airships in the rearview mirror, soaring over red and grey grey rooftops and tree-lined roads. His grip on the steering wheel tightened.

“No need to panic. We can have faith in the Director to delay the Empire long enough for us to reach the safehouse.”

“Um, yeah,” Prompto said awkwardly. “So… uh, are you ever gonna explain the Leviathan thing?”

Ignis hesitated. “Right, I suppose I owe you gentlemen an explanation,” he said. Steeled himself. “For some time now, Leviathan has been granting me visions of the future… in dreams. I recognise that this seems unusual, given that I am a person of no particular religious importance, though my family is part of the Tenebrean aristocracy.” Of course, he had been separated from his own family since the age of six when they had sent him away from the royal court due to the impending conflict with Niflheim, but never mind that now.

“But nevertheless, I believe these visions to be genuine,” Ignis finished, glancing over at Prompto.

Prompto must have sensed his nervousness over sharing what should rightly have sounded like the tale of a lunatic, because he was thoughtful as he responded. “Well, if Leviathan predicted that Noct and I would show up, the dreams must be real, right?”

“Yes,” Ignis said, relieved. “I have dreamed for several nights now that two people important to the Resistance would be arriving at the hospital in disguise. I must confess that I did not recognise you because I was expecting two people who were much more obviously aligned with another god.” With Bahamut, specifically. “I certainly did not expect a Besithia clone.”

Prompto flinched. “Yeah, if I were you I wouldn’t have either,” he said quietly. “But maybe… could you call me Prompto Argentum?”

The houses on either side of the road had begun thinning out, to be replaced slowly by trees. They crossed the bridge over a small river which to Ignis marked the town limits. But he said nothing to Prompto, not wanting to give either of them a false sense of security. He could see no more airships overhead, but Prompto was still periodically checking.

“Certainly,” Ignis said, feeling moved enough to give Prompto the benefit of the doubt. “If I may ask… why did you chose the name Argentum? It’s not a particularly uncommon name. And rather more Lucian than Gralean, I would think.”

“Yeah, exactly. But also, Besithia chose the name Prompto for me, cuz he wanted me to have a swift mind, like him,” Prompto said, sounding bitter. “And be swift to _obey orders_ and _carry out his commands_.” Here he looked visibly disgusted. “But if you put Prompto and Argentum together, you get quicksilver. It has a totally different meaning than just Prompto on its own. Mercurial, you know? I rise when I fall.” He clenched his fists. “And I’m fucking sick of being swift to obey orders.”

Ignis nodded in understanding. “I chose the name Scientia because I value knowledge and learning,” he said, again failing to explain that he was estranged from his family and could not use his original name. “But you may call me Ignis, if you wish. I would be happy to call you Prompto Argentum. But what should I call Noctis?”

After a moment of silence which suggested some internal debate, Prompto said, “Let’s stick with Noctis Victorium for now.”

So Prompto was willing to indicate Noctis was using a fake name, but he still didn’t want to tell Ignis what his real one was. Noctis’s real name had better not be Noctis Aldercapt or Noctis Izunia, because if so, Ignis would have to have a strongly worded conversation with Leviathan that night.

Prompto and Noctis _had_ to be the two people he had dreamed about because - well, because they fit the profiles of two hazily remembered figures. It was all in the little things - the hunted look in Prompto’s eyes, the way he held himself and the way his voice was inflected, glimpses of gold against black. 

Now that he was thinking about it… there had been some clues in Ignis’s dream as to the nature of Noctis’s true identity. An alignment with Bahamut usually meant a relation to the Lucian royal family. Then there was the fact that his name was Noctis. The real Noctis Lucis Caelum was dead. But could this be…?

Knowing he was probably opening a big can of worms, Ignis said, “To your knowledge, Noctis isn’t a clone of the Lucian prince, is he?”

“Did Leviathan tell you that?” Prompto said. His tone was curious, jovial, and calm. And it was definitely taking all of his effort to keep it that way. 

“Essentially, yes,” Ignis said, also calm - but internally conflicted. How he wished that they could stop the car right now. They were passing through a relatively thick forest. Even an airship might not find them if they were careful. He wanted to climb into the backseat and compare a picture of the dead prince with the face of their sleeping passenger. “Tell me, was the coma medically induced?”

Prompto sighed and bit his lip. Ignis could tell he wasn’t totally comfortable with this line of questioning, and wondered if he’d answer.

“Verstael Besithia requested him as a test subject for experiments on Lucian magic. They were originally gonna run tests on the Crystal, but since it disappeared after the fall of Insomnia their only choice was to study royal DNA.” Prompto paused, folding his arms. “They didn’t need an awake Noctis to do that, just an alive one,” he said darkly. “Anyway yeah, Besithia put him in a medically-induced coma for three years. And,” he finished with a touch of pride, “I was put in charge of his care for the whole time. Except at night. We had night staff.”

Ignis frowned. If Prompto had been taking care of a comatose patient on his own for three years, and kept him in such good physical condition throughout that time, Ignis would be truly impressed. But something didn’t add up. “You said he woke up just two days ago,” Ignis said. “Yet his level of awareness is far beyond what I would expect from someone who had been in a coma for any length of time at all.”

“His coma was… weird,” Prompto said. “It was more like he was just permanently asleep for a really long time. He was really responsive to stimuli, like sometimes I’d swear he even rolled over on his own when I wasn’t looking. Besithia thought it was weird, too, but he couldn’t explain it either.”

Ignis had more than enough medical training to know that Prompto probably was making good chunks of this up. If Noctis really were a clone, he would have been in stasis while he was being grown, not in a coma.

“It’s quite incredible that the two of you survived,” Ignis said neutrally. 

“I know,” Prompto said. “I’m really grateful that he even knew who I was when he woke up. That was the first thing he said. My name.” Prompto smiled, sounding incredibly proud of Noctis.

“He knew you before he went into the… coma, then?” 

“No,” Prompto shook his head, still smiling. Much of his earlier stress seemed to have melted away as they were now quite a fair distance away from the hospital. “He just knew me.” 

Ignis’s scientific curiosity was immediately piqued. Not much was known about the secret process Verstael Besithia had developed to grow fully realised clones, and from Prompto’s description, it sounded like the process was fascinating.

“Do you suppose he’d be willing to speak about it later?” Ignis said. “It truly is peculiar.”

Prompto looked a little startled, then shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know him that well - not as well as he knows me, I guess.” He gave a wry grin.

After that, the conversation turned to Ignis’s personal history as a practitioner of medicine, which was fairly straightforward save for his involvement in the Resistance. Ignis was a surgical resident at Penumbra General hospital, extremely talented but attempting to hide it in order to keep from attracting too much attention to the hospital. Now, he supposed, he was no longer a surgical resident, and the hospital’s cover might be in jeopardy due to Prompto’s presence there and subsequent escape. He hoped Director Shivani would manage to escape if her connection to the Resistance should be revealed, and that the rest of the staff would not be persecuted unjustly.

These thoughts weighed on his mind a little, though Prompto tried to reassure him. The conversation temporarily became awkward, but Prompto filled the silence by talking about his hobby of photography, and asking Ignis questions about his hobby of cooking. Prompto marvelled at the fact that Tenebrae wasn’t as cold as Niflheim even though it was farther north, and Ignis explained that this was due to the same magic responsible for Tenebrae’s famous floating islands.

The miles flew by, and soon it was time for a quick stop for lunch. They passed through a drive-through to avoid showing their faces to anyone, or leaving Noctis in the car unattended. As they pulled away, Ignis and Prompto quietly celebrated the fact that there truly had been zero evidence of an Imperial tail so far. 

After lunch, Prompto became quiet and pensive, before finally taking a fast-acting over-the-counter antacid and explaining that he was suffering from heartburn. Ignis mentally diagnosed him with stress. Noctis remained asleep the entire time.

Finally, afternoon came and they found themselves on the other side of Tenebrae, following the curve of the coast on a parallel road. They had left the forest and were surrounded by flat grassland, with few signs of human habitation. It was a few hours until sunset, and the sun still shone bright in the mostly clear sky.

“Are we there yet?” Prompto joked, though Ignis suspected the question was half-serious.

“Nearly,” Ignis said, peering out the side window as he held his phone in one hand. Displayed on the screen was a series of instructions he’d received from a Resistance contact on how to reach a special, undetectable safehouse. He had requested such a safehouse after the dreams from Leviathan had begun, not for his own sake, but for the sake of the two people he had known he would soon meet, who had turned out to be Noctis and Prompto Besith- Argentum. The instructions were fairly cryptic, but he knew he was supposed to be looking for a disused dirt path across the cliffs, assuming he had decrypted the message properly.

“Are you looking for something?” Prompto said, trying to peer over Ignis’s shoulder to read the screen of his phone. Ignis tilted it towards him silently. 

“Huh,” Prompto said, and then stared out the window along with Ignis as the car crept on at around five miles per hour. 

It took them a while, but fortunately the path they were looking for was easy to see - although it was unmarked, it was clearly a thick, bald swathe of dirt among the green grass and low shrubs covering the cliffs. Prompto exclaimed when he saw it, then looked guiltily at the backseat, but he hadn’t woken Noctis. Ignis was beginning to think that nothing short of a strike from the heavens would wake Noctis if he did not wish to be woken.

As they turned onto the path, Ignis found it to be somewhat annoyingly uneven. His car was not an all-terrain vehicle.

After around 20 minutes of driving, they reached the end of the path, which led directly off the cliff. The instructions said to cut the engine and wait as close to the cliff’s edge as possible, around 2 - 3 feet away from it. Ignis found this rather uncomfortable. He did not mind waiting on faith, but the car was so exposed. They sat there for a moment, the blue sky wide open before them. In the distance floated a few sky islands, these ones likely uninhabited since they were small and far from shore. 

“So… it something supposed to happen, or what?” Prompto said, tilting Ignis’s phone towards him and trying to read it again. Ignis wrenched his phone back, scowling at Prompto. They may have become familiar over the course of the four hour car ride, but they weren’t _that_ familiar. 

“Wait in this location for at least fifteen minutes,” Ignis read, shooting Prompto another glare. Prompto just smiled sheepishly at him. “Next, drive directly forward - there will be low visibility, but the path is sure. That is the end of the instructions.”

Prompto peered out of the windshield, twisting in his seat to try and see over the cliff’s edge. The only thing to be seen was a dizzying drop in height, ending in a thick cloudbank that shrouded what must be the ocean.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “Are you sure we’re not being played?”

“I had to answer too many questions to gain access to these instructions, so I hope not,” Ignis said, resisting the urge to fidget as Prompto was. “Will you please sit down?”

“Sorry,” Prompto said. “Just wondering if I should get out and look around a little.”

Ignis was about to reply that if this really was a set-up, they had better wait in the car so they could make a fast get-away, when he felt the entire car shake.

“What was that?” Prompto said fearfully. The ground seemed to lurch, and then they were sinking. 

“Shit!” Prompto exclaimed, unbuckling his seatbelt. “We gotta get out of here,” he said, turning around and leaning into the backseat, most likely to retrieve Noctis. But Ignis put out a hand and rested it on the back of his Pusciello ice hockey hoodie.

“Wait,” he breathed.

Ignis stared out the front windshield while Prompto twisted nervously around, watching the cliff face rise above them in the back windshield and the white bank of cloud loom ever closer from below. 

“I believe,” Ignis said, as the windshield whited out, “that we are on a floating island.”

“Do they all do stuff like this, or are we just unlucky?” Prompto moaned. 

Ignis chuckled. “Most of them are completely stationary, but some do move. This is a rare one indeed.”

On all sides, visibility was completely gone, even when Ignis flicked his fog lights on. Ignis was not sure that they had stopped moving until he heard a soft splash and realised the bottom of the island must have hit the water. They waited for a few moments, but the island did not move again. Prompto was still sitting with his seatbelt undone and his feet on the chair, his upper body half twisted around towards the backseat. 

“Shouldn’t we be going somewhere?” Prompto said uneasily. “That’s what the instructions said, right?”

“Shouldn’t you be wearing your seatbelt?” Ignis said, raising his eyebrows. He wasn’t about to drive into a cloud bank with nearly no visibility when not all the passengers in his car were safely secured.

“What if we drive into the ocean?” Prompto retorted.

“Alright, but do sit down,” Ignis sighed, doubtful that they were in any real danger. Once Prompto had slid back into his seat, Ignis gave a little “hmpf” but made no further comment. Putting the car into gear once more, he began driving slowly through the fog, leaning forward in his seat to make sure he could see the road in front of him. The seam between the island they had arrived on and the island ahead of it passed by with just a gentle bump under the wheels. 

They drove excruciatingly slowly for another ten minutes, until the fog began to thin. It dissipated from before them, though it still swirled all around them. It was as if they were in the eye of a storm, a calm, clear area in the middle of a thick, impenetrable white mist.

And directly in front of them was a two-story stone house with, of all things, a pale purple mailbox beside the door. 

It seemed they had arrived.

“So, who exactly lives here?” Prompto said, still peering around suspiciously. “Or is it gonna be just you, me, and Noct alone in this creepy house?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know who lives here, although I’m told that they are a very high ranking member of the Tenebrean Resistance indeed,” Ignis said, unbuckling his seatbelt. “Shall we make their acquaintance?”

He stepped out onto the grass beside the road, and found the air to be pleasantly cool and damp - not as damp as one would expect for a place completely surrounded by clouds. It was a mystery how the grass was growing here, given that the sky was covered over. There were even violets growing in the window-boxes on the first floor of the house. 

The car boot slammed as Prompto retrieved the wheelchair, unfolding it and setting it in front of Noctis’s door. Ignis hurried to assist him in transferring Noctis’s sleeping body from the car to the chair. As he did so, he heard the door to the house open behind him - their arrival must have alerted the house’s residents. Once Noctis was in the wheelchair, Ignis turned around to see a silver-haired woman holding a lance in one hand. 

Unlike when he had met Prompto, Ignis recognised her instantly. Even if she hadn’t been a public figure before the invasion of Niflheim, the resemblance between her and her famous mother was remarkable. It was the Queen’s Shield, Aranea Highwind.

“Which one of you is Ignis Scientia?” she said, planting the lance butt on the ground in a relaxed but wary ready stance. 

Prompto pointed at Ignis as he adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “I am Dr. Scientia. It is a pleasure to meet you, Lady Highwind.” He had already met one sort-of royal that day; he could stand to meet another one.

“Hmph,” Lady Highwind said, giving him an appraising once-over. “You do look like that picture you sent. But we weren’t expecting three people. Who are these two?” She gestured at Prompto and Noctis with her lance. “There something wrong with that guy? Better not be a corpse.”

“I’m Prompto Argentum,” Prompto said shyly. “Um… this is Noctis. I know it might seem a little weird, but he’s asleep because he just came out of a coma.”

“Noctis, huh?” Lady Highwind peered at Noctis’s face. Her eyes narrowed. “Is this some kind of joke?” she said, levelling her lance at Prompto.

“The goddess Leviathan assures me it is not,” Ignis put in hastily, in case anybody was at risk of being stabbed.

“Wake him up,” Lady Highwind ordered, jerking her chin towards the wheelchair. Prompto looked uncertain, but he gently shook Noctis’s shoulder and said his name. Noctis let out a sleepy murmur of protest. 

“Buddy, you gotta get up,” Prompto said. Ignis was surprised by the fondness in Prompto’s voice, especially given that he had a weapon pulled on him. 

“What?” Noctis said grumpily, not opening his eyes. Prompto gently shook his shoulder until, with an aggrieved sigh, Noctis looked up and saw Lady Highwind.

“Aranea?” he exclaimed. “You’re - you’re still-” He stopped, pressing his lips tightly together. “And Luna?”

Was he talking about Lady Lunafreya? Ignis wondered in shock. He was on a first-name basis with her? Could this be the _real_ Noctis Lucis Caelum, and not a clone as he had first assumed?

Lady Highwind spoke calmly and crisply, not lowering her lance. “I chose hope when all hope seemed lost.”

“The stars shine for you now,” Noctis answered promptly. It sounded like a Resistance codephrase - but one Ignis had never heard before.

Lady Highwind’s eyes narrowed. “You’re supposed to be dead. I want some more proof you’re not some brainwashed clone here to spy on the Resistance. Tell me something only you should know.”

Noctis sighed with annoyance, thought for a moment, and then gave a small smirk. “Remember that one time we met in Accordo a couple months before the war ended, and Luna wanted to swim in one of those Accordian infinity pools?”

“Hey, that’s a national secret,” Lady Highwind said, flushing a little as she cut Noctis off. “Tell it in my ear.” She knelt down beside the wheelchair, and Noctis whispered the rest of the story to her. Whatever he said seemed to both irritate her and satisfy her request for him to identify himself.

Standing up again, Lady Highwind regarded the whole scene with an unimpressed look. Without saying anything else, she backed up to the doorway of the house and gave it a little rap with her knuckles. It opened, and out stepped another woman, this one blonde and poised. Ignis recognised her, too. Lady Lunafreya Nox Fleuret - the Oracle of Tenebrae.

Pointing at the wheelchair, Lady Highwind said, “You were right. Noctis is alive.”

“Dear gods,” Lady Lunafreya breathed as she hurried forward to greet him. Ignis knew how she felt. Completely shocked and having to rapidly re-evaluate everything she knew about the Lucian war - or maybe that was just him. “What’s wrong? Is he hurt?” Luna dropped to her knees in front of Noctis, raising one hand that was already glowing gold with her legendary healing power. 

“He’s fine, he just came out of a coma,” Prompto explained again. Lady Lunafreya spared him a quick glance before placing her hand on Noctis’s chest. Meanwhile, Lady Highwind walked up beside Ignis, leaning on her lance as she watched Lady Lunafreya furrow her brow and move her hand around slightly. 

“Luna?” Noctis said. She looked up from her hand on his chest, and then wrapped him in a tearful hug as the golden glow extinguished itself. 

“Noctis, dear Noctis, Shiva told me you were alive but I couldn’t believe it,” Lady Lunafreya said after a moment. 

Noctis replied something Ignis couldn’t quite catch, as it was muffled, but it sounded to him a lot like “I missed you so much.”

Prompto was hovering awkwardly behind them, having let go of the handles of the wheelchair and backed up a few paces to give them some space. Ignis felt similarly awkward, especially after he glanced over at Lady Highwind and saw that she was smiling widely, with tears in her eyes.

“Let’s get you inside,” Lady Lunafreya said, drawing back from Noctis. “We have so many things to talk about.”

Prompto, Noctis, and Ignis followed Lady Lunafreya into the house, as Lady Highwind made her lance disappear in a shaft of golden light. She followed up the rear and shut the door behind them. Ignis found himself in a pleasantly cosy living room, with faded, flowered wallpaper and an old cream-coloured sofa. The window gave a view of the foggy field outside, with Ignis’s parked car just visible. Aranea flicked on the chandelier light hanging from the ceiling, as the window did not provide much light on its own. 

After they had all arranged themselves on the sofa and two mismatched armchairs, Lady Highwind introduced Prompto and Ignis to Lady Lunafreya, who insisted that Ignis and Prompto feel free to call her by her first name. Lady Highwind - Aranea - said the same. Ignis felt totally out of his depth - it had been so long since he had been in the company of royalty that he hardly knew how to act.

When Lunafreya looked at Prompto properly, her expression shifted. “Are you perhaps related to Verstael Besithia?” she asked politely. 

Prompto looked down at his hands and nodded. “Yeah… I’m - he’s my - I mean, I’m his clone,” he said, his brow furrowed.

Ignis was about to speak up and say that while Prompto might be genetically related to Besithia, he and his father were as unlike as any two people could be, when Noctis beat him to it. Tilting his head back, he fired a sharp look at Lunafreya and Aranea. “Prompto is my friend,” he said. 

Lunafreya nodded, smiling reassuringly at Noctis. “I’m sure he is a wonderful friend,” she said. “I was simply curious about the family resemblance.”

Ignis felt bad for Prompto, knowing he’d probably have to go through similar introductions for the rest of his life. Although he had only truly known him for a day, he had found Prompto to be a sympathetic young man up to this point.

“Okay, good,” Noctis said. “Are you gonna tell me where we are, then? ‘Cause I completely slept through the car ride.”

“This is a safehouse off the coast of Tenebrae,” Lunafreya was quick to answer. “Aranea and I have been living here for only three months. We used to be on the mainland, but our other safehouse was compromised, and this is the safest one we have.”

“She hates it,” Aranea said, sounding amused. “Actually, me too, because we never go out. It sucks.”

“Prompto and I drove four hours here directly from the hospital,” Ignis added, trying to help Noctis get his bearings. Turning to Lunafreya and Aranea, he continued, “I’m not quite sure why I was given directions to this particular safehouse. Surely it’s not common procedure for regular members of the Resistance to seek shelter with the Oracle herself.”

Lunafreya smiled wryly. “No, you were invited here because you reported receiving divine dreams from Leviathan. Shiva spoke to me and assured me these dreams were genuine. So, I thought it best if I could meet you myself.”

“You’re having dreams from Leviathan?” Noctis said, looking at Ignis for confirmation. He gave a nod. “I used to get dreams from Bahamut. It’s a king of Lucis thing. Haven’t had any in years, though.” He looked away.

“Not to worry,” Lunafreya said. “I’m sure Bahamut will speak to you again soon, now that you’ve returned to us. Our kingdoms may have been dissolved, but our gods aren’t finished with us yet.”

Noctis did not look particularly comforted by this. “Right…” he snorted. “Well, they’re gonna have to wait until I can get out of this wheelchair.”

“Speaking of which,” Ignis said, attempting to interrupt delicately, “did you find anything when you healed him earlier, Lunafreya?”

“Well…” Lunafreya started thoughtfully. “I honestly think you just need time and physical therapy, Noctis. The king’s magic is very strong in you - stronger than I expected, actually. I gave you a little of my power to give you some more energy and speed up your rate of healing. I’d be happy to give you more every day if it helps. You might not be able to get back on your feet immediately, but you will be able to stay awake longer.”

“I might be able to work out a physical therapy regimen,” Ignis volunteered. It wasn’t his area of expertise, but he didn’t see any other people with medical degrees around to help His Highness recover.

“I’ll help,” Prompto added.

Noctis frowned, absorbing the information. Finally, he sighed and said, “Thanks.” 

“So…” Aranea cut in again, “Are you gonna tell us how you’re still alive? Because Luna and I watched your public execution on TV four or five years ago.” Ignis knew what she was talking about, because he had seen it as well. Death by military execution. They had made sure to show a gruesome close-up of Noctis’s face after they had put a bullet in the back of his head. Even as a medical student, Ignis had found it horrific - the attitude with which they had treated the corpse.

Prompto snorted with laughter. “They tried growing clones of him so they could shoot a guy who looked exactly like him. But none of them were viable. They just kept failing to grow past a small ball of cells. Nobody could figure it out.” He shook his head, still grinning. Ignis hoped it was just schadenfreude. “Anyway, they finally had to stage a fake execution with a different prisoner and then alter the footage. They had to make a bunch of masks of his face, too. His “execution” wasn’t filmed live at all. It was all made up.”

Noctis grimaced, but didn’t seem particularly surprised. Perhaps he’d still been awake at the time of the false execution.

“And after that?” Lunafreya prompted gently, looking at Noctis. 

“I, uh,” Noctis said, looking from Lunafreya to Prompto hesitantly. “I don’t know if I can - I mean, it’s kindof a long story…”

He trailed off, looking upset, but Prompto put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a little reassuring squeeze. “You know what, why don’t I tell them about it? I was there for most of it. Sorry, Noct, we keep interrupting your naps to ask you about stuff.”

“Oh!” Lunafreya said, as she understood why Noctis was reluctant to speak. “Of course, I would be happy to hear the story from you, Prompto. Noctis, I’m afraid we don’t have any bedrooms on the ground floor. If you prefer, we could make you up a bed on this sofa. It’s quite comfortable.” She patted the sofa she and Aranea were sitting on for emphasis. It did indeed seem soft and springy. 

But Noctis shook his head. “I wanna go upstairs.”

“I’ll take you,” Prompto said instantly. 

“Like you know where anything is,” Aranea said, shaking her head. “Come on, you guys.”

Ignis watched as Aranea led Prompto and Noctis to the foot of the stairs. There, they lifted Noctis from the wheelchair and carried him bodily up the stairs - Noctis only scowled. However, this meant Ignis was alone with Lady Lunafreya, which left him feeling distinctly uncomfortable. 

Lunafreya must have felt it too, because she gave a little laugh and said, “Why, I hardly know what to say to you, Ignis. I can’t believe Noctis is here - and it’s been months since Aranea and I have seen anyone other than each other. I must have forgotten how to hold a conversation.”

Ignis was about to say that he hardly knew what to say himself, that he was quite honoured to be able to meet her in person, but Luna suddenly exclaimed, “Oh no - where are my manners? Ignis, would you like a cup of tea?”

If Ignis’s birth parents had imagined the princess of Tenebrae making tea for him instead of the other way around, they would have fainted on the spot. But Ignis really needed a moment to collect himself, and he sensed that Luna did as well. “Please,” he said gratefully.

Luna left the room, and a few moments later, Aranea and Prompto came back downstairs. Prompto disappeared into the kitchen to get Noctis some late brunch, and Aranea came back to the living room. Then Luna returned with a tray from which Ignis gratefully took a cup of tea. 

Now that Aranea was back, Ignis saw no reason not to go ahead and begin telling the story of how he and Prompto had escaped the hospital and arrived here. He got about half way through it before Prompto reappeared and finally sat back down in a vacant chair. Together, they finished the story of their escape. Then Luna asked Prompto to tell the story of how Noctis had survived and escaped Zegnautus Keep.

Prompto grinned. “It’s kindof a funny story…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait. I had to do a summer class. Next chapter's already in beta. Happy holidays!
> 
> Oh, and as for what happened with the Tenebrean infinity pool noodle incident? Well, they ended up in the canal.
> 
> Comments always welcome!


	6. Much Ado About Hand Holding

After Aranea helped Prompto get Noctis up the stairs, they carried him into the bedroom at the end of the hallway, and set him in the first of the two twin beds there. Prompto assumed the second bed was going to be his - unless Ignis wanted to share a room with Noctis. Aranea showed Prompto where the bathroom was, and then Prompto returned to Noctis’s side. 

“I’m hungry,” Noctis immediately complained, so Prompto went downstairs and awkwardly interrupted Aranea, Luna, and Ignis again. Aranea led him to the kitchen, where he found a tupperware container full of bone broth. This he took upstairs to Noctis, as well as the folded-up wheelchair. Noctis pulled a face as Prompto sat down on the bed and started re-arranging his pillows so he could sit up.

“Sorry, I guess have to help you again,” Prompto said, seeing Noctis’s discomfort. In some ways, it had been way easier when Noctis was asleep. Sure, he had wondered how Noctis would feel about all the stuff that was being done to him without his explicit consent, but back then he hadn’t had to face the reality of Noctis looking embarrassed and uncomfortable as Prompto helped him lift the spoon to his mouth and eat. If only he could just make Noctis better. Taking care of Noctis was supposed to be his job, after all. 

Scowling, Noctis looked away. Prompto rested his hand with the spoon against the side of the tray. After Noctis didn’t say anything for a long moment, Prompto said, “Everything okay?”

Noctis’s frown momentarily intensified, but then he let out a long sigh through his nose. “This sucks,” he said. He must have remembered their argument in the Niflheim parking lot bathroom because he added, “Don’t wanna take it out on you. Just get it over with.”

As Noctis ate, Prompto kept up a steady stream of commentary about their new surroundings, Luna, Ignis, and Aranea. _Ignis isn’t as weird as you thought after all. Actually, he tried to kill me. Wait, I’ll give you the details. Man, Lunafreya is so elegant and nice. Aranea is really cool. You knew them before the war?_ Noctis would reply with one-word answers or grunts. 

As they finished, Noctis said, “Gods, Prompto, it’s like I’m at the dentist. You ask me a question and then you stick a metal thing in my mouth.” 

He sounded more amused than irritated, though. Prompto gave him a sheepish grin. “Sorry. It’s kinda habit at this point to just talk to you, even if you’re not listening or can’t answer.”

Noctis rolled his eyes, giving Prompto’s knee a light slap that he barely felt. “Well, if Luna’s magic works, maybe we can talk in a couple of days. Get to know each other without you having to literally decipher my brainwaves.”

Prompto lit up, irrationally pleased. “Yeah! We should do that! Are you gonna sleep now, though?”

Noctis snorted. “Yeah, what do you think?” he said, closing his eyes. Prompto just shook his head. 

“Good night, Noct,” he said softly, getting up to turn out the light. 

After that, he went back downstairs. He would’ve preferred to stay with Noct, but everyone was waiting for him to tell them about how he and Noctis had escaped Zegnautus Keep. He found Ignis in the middle of explaining how they had escaped the hospital together. 

“Noctis settled in alright?” Luna asked as Prompto sat down. After Prompto assured her that he was, Ignis continued. When he was done, Prompto took his turn to explain everything he knew about how Noctis had spent his time at the Keep, and how they had escaped together. 

“You are one gutsy little dude,” Aranea said after hearing how Prompto had bluffed his way out of the city. Prompto was sort of amazed that Luna and Aranea were giving him compliments. It blew his mind that anyone could really look at him and see Prompto Argentum rather than Prompto Besithia. He had trouble seeing _himself_ that way, sometimes. 

The conversation continued into the evening, and Prompto ate dinner with Luna, Aranea, and Ignis. Luna explained that food and other supplies were brought here by boat, or from a series of hidden caves that lead to a nearby cove. Prompto wondered how long they would have to stay here, but he didn’t mind if it was a long time. Noct needed time to recover. Prompto would have to talk to Ignis about physical therapy. He wished he had a phone to make use of the internet so he’d have more to contribute, since he didn’t know much about physical therapy off the top of his head. 

After dinner, Ignis seemed to be getting introvert exhaustion from all the socialising, Luna as well to a lesser degree. So, Luna and Aranea went upstairs to move Aranea’s things into the master bedroom with Luna so that Ignis could have the third bedroom to himself.

As for Prompto, he asked for some blank paper, was given a lined notebook from Luna, and then returned to the room he was sharing with Noct to sit down on the empty bed. Noctis was still sleeping peacefully. Prompto had intended to use the notebook to draw, in the absence of a camera or a phone, but his stomach was acting up again. That was making Prompto really nervous. 

Last time, it hadn’t gotten this bad this fast. He had thought he had six months to go. But maybe he had less than that. What if it was just weeks?

What if it was days?

Prompto’s breath hitched in his throat at the thought, knowing he was probably being melodramatic but unable to stop himself. It couldn’t be days, or he’d be completely unable to eat. It was just a bit of heartburn. He needed to get out of his head. 

Looking over at Noctis’s sleeping form, Prompto bit his lip, absently brushing away the few tears that had gathered at the corners of his eyes. Abandoning the notebook, Prompto moved to sit on the ground beside Noctis, leaning back against the bed. 

“Noct…” he began in a whisper, unwilling to wake Noctis by accident. “I don’t feel so good…” Prompto stopped, ran his fingers through his hair, and sighed, letting his hand fall limply back down to the ground. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I don’t think you heard me tell you I’m sick. That’s okay, but I don’t know how to tell you again. Not… to your face.” 

He swallowed, bit his lip again, and blinked very rapidly. “I’m sorry, Noct. I wanna be there for you so bad, but I don’t know how long it’s gonna last.”

For a moment, Prompto wondered what would happen if he asked Luna to try and heal him. But his illness was caused by the same thing that had caused all of Noctis’s clones to die - Besithia had tried to mix science and the king’s magic. If Luna used more magic on him, would it only kill him faster? 

It was a moot point. He didn’t think he could tell Luna the truth about his condition any more than he could tell Noctis. 

Prompto put his head in his hands again, resting his elbows on his knees. He closed his eyes, and tried to just breathe until all of his thoughts slipped away. It was working until Noctis gave a sleepy little murmur, and Prompto’s heart just about beat out of his chest. If Noctis had heard him… 

But no, he was still sleeping peacefully when Prompto glanced up to the bed. Noctis was facing him, one hand resting near the edge of the bed and the other stuffed up under his pillow. Prompto was overcome with the urge to hold Noctis’s hand. He reached out, but stopped himself before their fingers could brush. 

In the past, Prompto had held Noctis’s hand plenty of times. It had started because he felt bad for Noctis, for not having any family or friends to sit with him and hold his hand or tell him they missed him and they hoped he would wake up soon. After Noctis started replying to Prompto’s monologues, Prompto had realised that it might be a little weird, so he had asked Noctis if it was okay for him to keep doing it. Noctis had said yes - at least, the fMRI scanner had shown activation in his nucleus accumbens shell, which Prompto had interpreted to mean that Noctis did want his hand held.

But now, the gesture would be different. It wasn’t that Prompto wanted to comfort Noctis, it was that he wanted to derive comfort from Noctis’s presence. That difference made Prompto want to ask him again, if it was okay. Prompto didn’t feel like he was good with people. He didn’t want to mess up the best and only friendship he had in the remaining time he had left on this planet just because he wanted to hold hands like some touch-starved loser.

But he felt so alone.

—

Noctis was floating in space. The air was coloured teal, green, and blue, with silver gusts of magic flowing here and there, as if the wind had been made visible. These currents could also be felt, like thin jets of water streaming past his body. The space was at once vast, and at once folded in on itself, so that it pressed in close, as if he were in the centre of the sky shown through a fisheye lens. 

‘ _Holy Six,_ ’ Noctis thought to himself - not because he didn’t know where he was, but because he had thought he’d never find his way here again. 

Just as he thought this, a figure materialised around him. He found himself cupped in the palm of a massive, armoured hand, looking into the solemn metal mask of a god with blue eyes uncomfortably similar to his own. Carved silver blades fanned from his back like wings. He carried with him an aura of power, like a cloying perfume, which would make a lesser man shrink back in fear. But Noctis was used to it by now. 

“Well met, Bahamut,” Noctis greeted him, rather optimistically. He held his breath as Bahamut regarded him for a moment. 

**_“Hail, Prince of Lucis,”_** Bahamut said finally. His voice was deep and twisted, at once a whisper and the loudest thing Noctis had ever heard. It only added to the crushing feeling of his aura. But Noctis did not bow.

“It’s been a while…” he said instead. 

**_“Has it? Perhaps in your years it has. But our separation was not according to my will,”_** Bahamut said, impassive. **_“You were caught within a dream where my light could not reach. The totem was with you.”_**

He didn’t seem apologetic or concerned in the slightest. Nor did Noctis expect him to be. By “totem” he meant Carbuncle, undoubtedly, since Carbuncle’s presence was linked to a small wooden statue Noctis kept in the Armiger. Noctis had yet to work out how Bahamut and Carbuncle were related, but it was clear that they knew each other.

Bahamut’s expression was grave.

**_“But now it is time for you to return to Lucis.”_ **

Noctis’s eyes widened. The thought of Lucis brought the scent of gunpowder to his nostrils, the taste of blood to his tongue, the cleave and yield of metal and bone beneath his sword. War. Now, a desolation.

“I could go back,” he said hesitantly. “But… what am I supposed to do?” 

**_“Too long has the Crystal remained unguarded. Too long has the throne stood bare.”_ **

“I can’t do that,” Noctis blurted out, before remembering he should never contradict Bahamut if he could help it. But how was he supposed to just… waltz into Lucis and overturn the result of a battle concluded five years ago? All his old friends and contacts were dead or in hiding. The Empire controlled the capital city and every military installation in the country. 

**_“But you will, O Doubtful One,”_** Bahamut said snidely. **_“Come, I will show you.”_**

One of the giant swords which composed the fan of his wings dipped forward, interposing itself in front of Noctis’s face. The blade was nearly as tall as Noctis himself, forged from a trio of metals - gold, silver, and black zirconium. In the centre of the blade were inscribed runes. The sword gleamed, power emanating from it as it did from Bahamut himself. 

As Noctis watched, the runes began to glow white hot as if lit by the heat from a forge. They dissolved, turning the black flat of the blade into a smooth white plane. The blade seemed to fill his vision, until he could dimly make out forms moving inside of it. Six human figures, each silhouetted by a magical element. As he watched, Bahamut began to speak.

**_“We gods never expected our children to rise up against each other. When we saw that the hubris of Niflheim had caused her to raise arms against the other kingdoms of men, we foolishly placed our faith in our divine might alone. In the final days of the reign of the Father, it became clear to us that the war would not be won. Thus, we spoke with the Father and the Oracle Sylva in order to devise a plan to reclaim our land, punish the evildoers of Niflheim, and restore peace to Eos. For this purpose, the Six utilised the guidance of the King and the Oracle to choose six humans, the Blessed. I will name them for you now, that you might know them as you meet them.”_ **

**_“The Oracle, blessed of Shiva, who wields healing light, banishes evil, and speaks to the gods with the voice of the people. She is known to you.”_ **

Noctis saw in the vision Luna’s familiar form, half shrouded in snow. Icy particles swirled around her while delicate veins of ice crept out from behind her in an ever expanding mandala.

**_“The Shaper, blessed of Ramuh, who creates weapons to rival those of the Empire and protect the Blessed from its infernal devices.”_ **

Noctis did not recognise the Shaper, but she was surrounded by the golden glow of an electric storm. Was it possible that she could create something to counteract the Empire’s weapons which had destroyed the Wall and could block the king’s magic? 

**_“The Guardian, blessed of Titan, who protects the mortal forms of the Blessed and holds their spirits within himself.”_ **

For a moment, Noctis thought he recognised the Guardian, but the man was quickly obscured by glimmering shafts of rock and clouds of dust which had sprung up from the earth. Besides, it was impossible for the Guardian to be the person Noctis wished it could be. He, like many of Noctis’s comrades, was dead.

**_“The Sage, blessed of Leviathan, who through wisdom and foresight guides the hands of the Blessed.”_ **

The Sage was surrounded by water, the waves foaming and crashing. Light shone from the lenses of his glasses. With a start, Noctis recognised Dr. Scientia. So he was to be a permanent addition to Noctis’s inner circle.

**_“The Rook, blessed of Ifrit, whose unassailable will ensures that the light of our star will never go out.”_ **

The Rook was engulfed in a roaring fire, to such a degree that Noctis couldn’t even make out whether the figure was male or female.

**_“And the King, blessed of Bahamut, who will lead them.”_ **

Of course, Noctis recognised himself, walking tall, surrounded by shafts of brilliant white light. He smiled at the vision, but it was bittersweet. That was the Noctis who had bravely tried to lead a guerrilla campaign against the Nifs, not the one who had had his body broken in Zegnautus Keep and his spirit broken by failure. But if Bahamut said that that spark of life was in him still… it had to be. Noctis could only pray he still had the strength to become that person again.

At least he would have five other people beside him, including Luna. It was comforting to think they could help pick up his slack. He only hoped Prompto could come with him to Lucis, and probably Luna would want Aranea to come as well.

 ** _“Now you have seen all that I can show you, and all that your Father knew,”_** Bahamut said solemnly. The image in front of Noctis wavered and then faded. The blade seemed to shrink back to its original size, which was still gigantic, and Bahamut tilted his torso away to withdraw his wing. Noctis found himself floating in his palm again, his view of the god’s face unobstructed. 

“Thank you,” Noctis said. “I have a question.”

 ** _“Your destiny is unquestionable and immutable, but still, you may ask,”_** Bahamut said. Although Noctis couldn’t see his face behind the metal mask, his tone indicated he thought he was humouring Noctis. Internally, Noctis rolled his eyes. Bahamut was always like this. 

“When should I go back?” Noctis said, though what he really meant was ‘When will I recover from this coma?’

**_“Immediately. Within a fortnight.”_ **

Noctis stared, completely dumbfounded. “You mean, I’ll have recovered within a fortnight?” 

**_“No. But you must go, nevertheless.”_ **

Noctis remembered how hard it had been to open his eyes to talk to Dr. Scientia and Prompto at the hospital, earlier. How he couldn’t even eat a container of applesauce without help from somebody. How taking the wheelchair out of the car and getting him into it was like a five minute process. And a humiliating one, too. Everything about this was just humiliating.

Sure, he could use his weapons. And also, he could talk. Those were the two things he seemed to be capable of doing. But there was no way he could really, truly fight. He’d be dead in an instant on any real battleground. If not at the enemy’s hand, then from over-exhaustion. 

“I can’t,” Noctis said, clenching his fists.

Bahamut leaned forward slightly. For a moment, Noctis was afraid Bahamut would tighten his fist and he’d be crushed to death, but the god’s fingers stilled.

**_“I have shown you great visions, sent five allies to aid you. And all the power that I can give you to restore your strength, I have already given. All will come to pass exactly you have seen. Doubt does not become you, Prince.”_ **

Bahamut’s voice was firm, but unexpectedly gentle. Noctis hadn’t even known that he could make that tone of voice. 

**_“Go,”_** Bahamut said, and Noctis began to wake.

—

The first thing Noctis became aware of as he woke was the sensation of a strong, warm hand wrapped around his own. A strangely familiar one. Prompto? 

When he opened his eyes, he saw that he was in a dreary, nondescript bedroom somewhere. Not the hospital, as he had been half-expecting. No wires, no tubes, no monitors. Creamy-yellow walls adorned with a single, yellowing framed print of a bunch of violets. Two windows opposite him with a view of thick white fog. Twin beds, the one beside him empty, clean bedspread. Closed door. 

And beside him as he had been hoping was Prompto, sitting on the ground and leaning against the bed, Noctis’s hand in his. It took Noctis a moment to remember that they were in Luna’s house in the cloudbank. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d woken in the past few days disoriented, not knowing where he was, having been moved many miles in his sleep.

But always, Prompto was there.

Noctis smiled as he looked down at Prompto’s peaceful face, loosely tightening his grip on Prompto’s hand. Prompto’s fingers twitched a little, but he didn’t open his eyes. 

It couldn’t be comfortable for him down there on the floor. Noctis debated waking him and asking if he’d like to get up on the bed. It would be a little awkward because it was a small bed and Noctis still felt like a baby deer walking for the first time every time he tried to move his body, but Prompto could probably handle it. 

Eventually, Noctis settled for gently stroking Prompto’s knuckles with his thumb. But as soon as he did it once, Prompto’s eyes snapped open and he looked directly up at Noctis on the bed behind him. 

“Noct, you gave me a heart attack!” he said, putting his free hand to his heart dramatically. “I thought you were gonna sleep all night, but it’s only nine.”

“I had a dream,” Noctis said curtly, not particularly wanting to talk about it right now. He wasn’t going to waste moments awake and alone with Prompto talking about prince, king, god stuff, or whatever. 

“Oh…” Prompto said, looking down at their hands. Seeming to suddenly realise they were still clasped he quickly let go, actually putting Noctis’s hand back on the bed for him, which made Noctis snort with amusement. 

“Sorry about that, I wasn’t sure if it would be okay. I mean, I’ve done it before…” Prompto said, trailing off and biting his lip. 

“I know,” Noctis reassured him. “You asked me if it was fine, and I said yes. Remember?”

Prompto shook his head. “I remember, but… I spent so long thinking maybe I was making it all up, that you weren’t really talking to me, you know? So now, to know that it was all real? Man, it’s kindof mind blowing. We really did have all those conversations, and it wasn’t just in my head. And you know all this stuff about me, but… I feel like I don’t really know that much about you.” He paused. “I wish I did, though,” he said quietly.

Noctis said nothing, looking up at the sloped white ceiling. Slowly, he answered. “I mean… there’s not much to tell. I’m the prince of a country that doesn’t exist anymore. What do you want to know?” 

“Not stuff like that,” Prompto said immediately. “Stuff like, what’s your favourite colour? What’s your favourite food? What’s your favourite animal-”

“And will I take a picture of it with you?” Noctis interrupted.

Prompto let out a surprised huff of laughter. “Yeah! Stuff like that.”

“Um…” Noctis thought for a moment. “I never had a favourite colour. I’ve always worn black and I guess I look good in it. I like eating fish, and catching them is my hobby. I hate vegetables. And I like cats, but that’s not… wildlife.” Before he could lose his nerve, he continued on with, “And do you wanna get on the bed? You look uncomfortable on the ground.”

“I don’t think they’ve cleaned this carpet for a really long time,” Prompto agreed, getting to his feet. He looked at Noctis awkwardly for a moment before dusting off the seat of his pants with one hand and then sitting down on the edge of the bed by Noctis’s knees. 

He cleared his throat and crossed one ankle over the opposite knee, resting his fore-arms across the raised leg. “I could take a picture of you with a cat. I bet it would be really cute.”

“And your first pictures were of kittens,” Noctis said, glad that he remembered that detail. It was so worth it, because Prompto looked delighted. “And your first camera was red,” Noctis added, to get Prompto to smile some more. 

“Your memory is amazing,” Prompto said. 

Noctis chuckled. He could feel tiredness creeping up on him, and knew that he couldn’t last in this conversation much longer - _dammit_. “No, you just told me the same story like at least five times.”

“I did not!” Prompto protested. “Tell me what the kittens’ names were, if you know so much about me, huh?”

“Um…” Noctis said. It was getting a little difficult to think. “I think one of them was called Chibi, or something. And one had a really fancy name I don’t remember. But it’s not like they were even your cats.” In fact, they had belonged to another researcher, who had let young Prompto play with them before they found forever-homes with the researcher’s neighbours in Gralea.

“Their names were Chibi, Frosty, Fluffy, Snuggles, and Argento Victoriam. I named all of them after their attributes except my father named all of his kids really fancy sounding stuff, so I thought I should do it too,” Prompto said, grinning good-naturedly at the memory.

“You mean to say… you named both of us after cats…” Noctis managed to say.

Prompto looked over at Noctis in concern. “Hey, not me - only you! I mighta panicked at the hospital and named you after a cat, so what? But you sound really tired…”

“I am,” Noctis admitted. Prompto started as if to say something, then bit his lip and stopped. 

“It’s fine. You can stay,” Noctis murmured, closing his eyes. As he fell back asleep, he felt Prompto’s fingers close around his once more, gentle and constant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first chapter so far that my beloved beta has not sent back for multiple rounds of editing. Thank the Six! However, she did provide this joke:
> 
> Q: What does Noctis call king Regis's brother who eats a lot of bread?  
> A: His "carb-uncle".
> 
> FYI, the nucleus acumbens shell is part of the “wanting” component of the wanting/liking reward pathway in the brain. So when Prompto asked if he could hold Noctis's hand when Noctis was in the coma, he read Noctis's response as something along the lines of "do want". 
> 
> Comments always welcome!


	7. In Which There Is A Shocking Amount of Domesticity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** Please hover over this text for chapter warnings (contains spoilers).   
>  **

The next morning, Prompto woke before Noctis, feeling mildly nauseated even though he had taken heartburn meds the night before. He rolled onto his back and put his knees up, and the feeling started to ebb. The room was unfamiliar, but he remembered: he was in Luna and Aranea’s safehouse, Noctis was in the bed next to him, and they were safe here. Thank Ignis’s weird god.

Prompto yawned and stretched as he got out of bed, then winced as his car-crash induced bruises from two days ago came back to haunt him in the form of various aches. The clock on the wall said that it was almost noon, though the dim light coming in from the window made it seem earlier due to the fact that the house was still veiled in thick white fog. About to get dressed, Prompto sniffed the armpits of the singular t-shirt he owned and recoiled at the smell. It hadn’t been washed for like three days of stressed-out sweating, and he also hadn’t had any deodorant because that hadn’t really been a priority when he was _running for his life_. 

Now, however…

Noctis was still asleep, as expected. Prompto pulled on his inside-out boxers, his Pusciello wrestling hoodie, and his lab coat, which were the cleanest pieces of clothing he had. Aware of how weird he looked, he crept downstairs, hoping to find a washing machine without anyone seeing him. Unfortunately, Ignis and Luna were already up, sitting at the kitchen table and drinking coffee together. Prompto had time to notice that Ignis was wearing a bathrobe in the second before Luna saw him and waved him over. 

Boy, was Prompto glad that his white coat buttoned all the way down the front so no one could see he wasn’t wearing trousers. Awkwardly, he headed over to the kitchen, lingering in the doorway because he didn’t want to get close enough to Luna for her to actually smell him. 

“Good morning, Prompto,” she said. Her eyes flicked to his disaster of an outfit, then to the bundle in his hand. “Oh dear - laundry for you too? I just put Ignis’s things in.”

Prompto took a deep breath. “Yeah, uh… laundry would be great. Noct and I didn’t exactly have the time to grab spare luggage when we left Zegnautus Keep.” 

“Good gods,” Ignis said, looking directly at Prompto, which made him cringe. “Is that coat… from Zegnautus Keep?”

“Um, yeah?” Prompto said, not sure why Ignis cared. There were no Empire secrets hidden in this labcoat. 

“The sooner we get that thing in the laundry, the better,” Ignis muttered.

Luna took pity on Prompo in his obvious discomfort. “I’m so sorry, Prompto, I should have thought of this last night when I offered you toiletries. Please, let me wash those for you. Aranea and I will see if we have anything for you to wear in the meantime.” Turning to Ignis she said, “Please, put clothes for Noctis and Prompto on the list.”

It was then that Prompto noticed a pad of paper on the table beside Ignis’s mug of coffee, along with a pen. 

“We are making a list of things for Luna and Aranea’s supply contact to bring in a few days,” Ignis explained. “Is there anything you would like to have added?”

“Um, yeah,” Prompto said, edging away from Luna even as he handed her his ball of stinky clothing. He felt really bad for her for having to touch it, and almost wanted to tell her to wash her hands after. As she took the clothes down to the basement, Prompto told Ignis a couple of things he hoped could be brought here for him and Noctis, like some more stomach medicine for him and the correct size of shirt.

“Do you think Noctis will need a cell phone for anything?” Luna said doubtfully as she re-emerged from the basement. Prompto didn’t know, and said as much, as well as telling her that he didn’t have one either because he had thrown his away. 

“Might as well get one for each of you, just to be safe,” Ignis suggested. “My phone is untraceable, thanks to the Resistance. It was wise of you to throw yours away, else you might have been tracked.” 

“Way ahead of you,” Prompto said, shaking his head. Laundry mission accomplished, he mostly just wanted to escape the kitchen before anyone noticed he wasn’t wearing real trousers. So he grabbed the rest of the soup from yesterday in case Noct woke up, then tried to make his escape.

Unfortunately, Luna followed him upstairs, but then went into her own room, while Prompto returned to his and Noct’s. A few moments later there was a knock at the door, and Luna was there, holding some clothing. 

“I have a few things here that might fit you,” she said, showing him a blue sundress, a white top and skirt, a blue button down, and two pairs of jeans, one of them white and the other one distressed. “You look about the same size as me, but let me know if they don’t fit. I think these will do for Noctis as well, but I’m not sure how he will feel about the colours. He’s supposed to only wear black.”

As if he had heard his name, Noctis let out a sleepy little noise which Prompto knew instantly meant he was waking up. Prompto ushered Luna into the room, putting the clothing she had given him down on his bed. Both of them turned to Noctis, who was opening his eyes slowly. 

“Prompto?” he said, turning his head towards them. “Prompto. Luna.”

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Prompto said. Noctis rolled his eyes. 

“Luna, I gotta talk to you,” he said, and then yawned. “Ugh, sorry. Listen, I had this dream last night, with Bahamut…”

Noctis then told Luna and Prompto about this dream he had had, where Bahamut had come to him and told Noctis that he and the other Blessed of the gods had to all be in Lucis within a fortnight. 

After hearing Noctis’s dream, Luna seemed about ready to run off Lucis right then and there, and said she would call a meeting for all of them to discuss Bahamut’s command later, when Aranea was up and Prompto was hopefully better clothed. 

Prompto’s first reaction was “Hell no, you’re not strong enough.” His second reaction was, “Well, if you have to go to Lucis, there’s no way you’re going without me.” He didn’t care if he was a Blessed of the gods or not - and he figured he wasn’t, since he was from Niflheim and had never met a god in his life. But it was his job to take care of Noctis, and he was damn well going to do it. Hopefully, with his new phone he could look up physical therapy techniques to help Ignis make a plan for Noctis to get his strength back. It occurred to him that Noctis might also need a better wheelchair. There was so much planning to do, and only two weeks - holy shit. 

After that, Luna gave Noctis another dose of her golden healing magic, and left so Prompto could give Noctis his breakfast. 

“Soup, again?” Noctis said, making a face. “This potage stuff is too close to vegetables for my taste. Isn’t there like, normal food? Also, you need a shower.”

Prompto groaned. “Nooooooooct,” he complained. “I had one last night, it’s just my clothes, I swear. I’ll go look for something else, but Ignis is in the kitchen and I don’t wanna go there.”

“Okay, fine,” Noctis said, sighing exaggeratedly. “I guess if I finish it now I won’t have to eat it later. And you think your clothes are gross? I’m still in a hospital gown.”

“Luna doesn’t have any black clothing,” Prompto informed him, opening the container of soup. 

“Do I look like I give a shit? I’ll wear embroidered sylleblossoms on my ass if it means getting out of this gown,” Noctis said, and Prompto laughed. 

They continued bantering a little as Noctis ate. Afterwards, Prompto asked him if there was anything he wanted put on Luna’s list, and learnt that Noctis wanted soup that wasn’t vegetable-based and didn’t like coffee. Then he helped Noctis change into Luna’s sundress, because it was the most comfortable and convenient piece of clothing she had provided. Prompto went to have another shower (just to be safe) before changing into the distressed jeans and one of the button-downs with relief.

After that, Luna and Prompto relayed Noctis’s dream to Aranea and Ignis over late lunch. Ignis, like Prompto, was concerned about Noctis’s readiness to leave the island with his body so weak, but Noctis had been insistent that Bahamut had not left them a choice. But, since they had been given a fortnight for their departure, the group collectively decided to remain on the island for seven days and then leave on the eighth. Luna was confident they could make the journey to Lucis in three to four days, assuming they arranged passage from Altissia to Lucis in advance. 

Although Prompto participated in the discussion primarily as an advocate for Noctis’s health, he couldn’t help being secretly concerned for his own. Yesterday, he had started irrationally worrying that he was getting way worse, but he had hoped that he’d feel better today. Instead, he had been nauseous upon waking. that was not a good sign. Last time he had gotten sick, it had taken a while for his condition to deteriorate - but when it had, Prompto had been completely incapacitated. 

Prompto’s symptoms had been bothering him for several weeks now. All of the techniques to keep his appetite up and his body stable that he had learnt in recovery from the previous period of illness - the proton pump inhibitors, the milk of magnesium, the slippery elm bark, the calcium tablets, the H2 blockers, the peppermint, the ginger - had been working so far, miraculously. But it still seemed like his symptoms were getting too intense, too fast. He wanted to believe that it was just the stress of the past few days that had been making them seem worse.

But what if he was wrong, and his condition suddenly took a turn for the worse when they were travelling to Lucis? And what would he do when he inevitably had to be hospitalised sometime after they arrived?

Prompto knew he had six months to live, but he was starting to fear that what that really meant was a few more weeks to live normally and then five months in a hospital hooked up to a feeding tube. 

Well, Prompto rationalised, it wasn’t like he could get the medical care he needed here in this isolated safehouse, even with Ignis and Luna around. It was better to go to Lucis with the group, and then they could drop him off at some Lucian hospital if he happened to suddenly get worse. So, he would put off telling them until later. No need to add extra stress to anyone, especially not to Noctis.

 

\--

 

DAY 2

The next day, Luna knocked on the door to Noctis and Prompto’s room just as Noctis was starting to eat breakfast. 

“Oh good, I caught you awake,” Luna said with a smile as she sat down on the edge of the bed. Prompto, who was sitting on the opposite edge, put the spoon down so Luna could give Noctis his daily dose of healing magic. 

As she raised her hand towards his chest, Noctis said, “Wait, I… I need to ask you something.” Luna lowered her hand, as Noctis looked away.

“What is it, Noctis?” Luna asked.

Noctis’s hands clenched, and Prompto wondered what was on his mind and why he, Prompto, didn’t already know about it. “I was wondering if you knew what happened to my father’s Crownsguard,” Noctis said. “My friends…”

Luna was silent for a moment. “You know that Gladio was captured and critically injured while trying to escape.” Luna’s tone was matter-of-fact, but Prompto could see the sadness in her eyes. He didn’t know who Gladio was, but he could tell he was someone important to Noctis by the way that Noctis’s expression seemed to freeze as he heard Luna speak. 

But he nodded, and Luna continued, “Cor Leonis… also passed.” Noctis breathed in sharply. “They still say that he is immortal and that his spirit watches over Lucis.” Luna gave a small smile, but Noctis didn’t react. “Monica Elshett also passed. I heard that soldiers by the names of Melmond, Deist, Tozus, Mist, Quelb, Jidoor, Corel, Esthar, and Madain were among the dead, but I don’t have a full list. Most people I simply haven’t heard from in years, and those who survived are likely using false names now. Plus, it’s too risky for information to pass freely between Lucis and Tenebrae in case it should be intercepted. We get reports from Lucis on a need-to-know basis… I’m sorry.” 

Luna paused to look at Noctis, and see that he was still stony-faced. Luna’s forehead wrinkled in concern. Prompto had to look away. He didn’t like seeing Noctis so upset, and Luna as well - and this was a hurt he could do nothing to heal. 

“Do you know anyone who survived?” 

Luna thought for a moment. “I suspect that Gladio’s sister Iris is alive and actively working for the Resistance.”

“Iris is okay,” Noctis said, and Prompto risked a glance up. Noctis looked like he was devastated, but hanging all his hopes on this one piece of good news.

“I can’t promise you that,” Luna said, reaching out to put her hand over Noctis’s, “but I’m reasonably certain or I wouldn’t have mentioned it. I’m sorry I don’t have better news for you.”

Noctis took a deep, shuddering breath. “No, it… it’s okay. I expected as much. I just wanted to hear it from you so I’d… know.”

“I know that some people from Insomnia made it to Lestallum. When we get to Lucis, we can contact the local chapter of the Resistance and look them up,” Luna offered, and Prompto remembered that _oh yeah_ , they were going to Lucis.

“I’d like that,” Noctis said, flashing a wan smile. Luna gave his hand a squeeze.

“May I heal you now?”

“Sure,” Noctis said. The tension began to drain from the room as Luna placed her hand on Noctis’s chest, and it started to glow gold. Prompto realised that he had hunched over with his whole body angled away from Noctis’s, so he straightened, giving Noctis a look that said _It’s gonna be okay_. Noctis caught his eye and his posture seemed to soften too. 

After Luna had finished, Prompto thought that would be that for Noctis’s morning social interaction. He and Noctis returned to the business of getting Noctis fed, when Aranea appeared in the doorway. Seeing Prompto help Noctis eat by clamping his fingers down on Noctis’s to make sure he didn’t drop the spoon, she sighed. 

“This is the saddest thing I’ve ever seen,” she said, shaking her head.

“Fuck you!” Noctis shot after her as she disappeared into the hallway. Prompto started up, about ready to throw the bowl of porridge right into her face. It had too much brown sugar and Noctis didn’t like it anyway. But when she came back, she was holding a red rubber ball around the size of a tennis ball. 

“This is a grip strengthener,” she said, handing it to Noctis. “Ignis said you can’t get out of bed for a while, but maybe you can use this. I used it after I got an injury saving Luna from a Flan. Yeah, go ahead, laugh at me,” she said, since Noctis was snorting with amusement already, and Prompto was sitting there wondering if Aranea was for real. “Anyway, I hope it helps,” Aranea said, kindly.

“Yeah… thanks,” Noctis said, visibly relaxed now. Prompto shook his head as Aranea left the room. 

“Talk about abrasive,” he said as she hopped down the stairs. 

“Tell me about it,” Noctis said, but he smiled as he looked at the rubber ball where it sat on the bedside table. 

Luna’s healing visits were routine for the rest of the week, as was the sound of rubber being squeezed whenever Noctis was awake. He was determined to regain the full use of his hands. He also insisted on sitting up as much as possible, which Prompto was glad to help with. 

What Prompto was not fine with was Noctis also trying to regain the strength in his arms by lifting random objects whenever they were set within arm’s reach of him. After he caught Noctis trying to lift the heavy bedside lamp, he swiped the weights in the kitchen that were meant to be used with the scale, and gave him those instead. Fortunately, the kitchen also housed an electric scale. Ignis, who had taken it upon himself to become their unofficial chef, didn’t notice the absence of the weights. 

Dinner that night for everyone but Noctis was a vegetarian pasta. Afterwards, Prompto tried to escape back upstairs to sit with Noctis again for a while. But Luna put her hand on his arm and steered him into the living room instead, Aranea and Ignis following.

“We have a few decisions to come to regarding our trip to Lucis, and we’d like you to be included,” she said, as they all took their seats on the sofa and chairs. 

“We do?” Prompto said, hoping that wasn’t as ominous as it sounded. He did not want to find out they had to run a blockade or steal an airship or anything like that.

“Logistics, mostly,” Luna explained. “Aranea and I were wondering if we should bring one car or two, for instance.”

“Two cars would be safer,” Ignis said, adjusting his glasses slightly. “Not only can one car act as a distraction for the other, or replace the other in case of a crash, but it could also enable us to carry more supplies or achieve two goals at once if need be.”

“Our thoughts exactly,” Aranea said. “And since we have your car… if you let us use it, we’ll swap the plates.”

Ignis inclined his head to indicate his permission for them to use his car. Prompto remembered the ignoble end of his previous escape vehicle, Besithia’s car, and hoped Ignis knew what he was getting himself into. Thinking of that, Prompto wondered if he also knew what _he_ was getting himself into. But no, surely Luna had everything under control.

“Prompto, are you able to drive if need be?” Luna asked, cutting into Prompto’s anxious thoughts.

“Sure, no problem,” Prompto said, giving her a hasty thumbs up. “I have a license and everything.”

“Good. Then I think we’re settled on that point,” Luna said. “Now, what do you all think about disguising ourselves for the journey? I don’t want us recognised by a civilian and reported.”

“I don’t think I should disguise myself. My good looks and charm are just too much of an asset,” Prompto joked.

Aranea snorted. “You keep telling yourself that. How about some concealer for those freckles, and maybe a hair cut?”

“We all should get hair cuts,” Ignis said seriously. “That could make a big difference in our ability to be recognised by strangers.”

“Hair cuts!” Prompto exclaimed. “You know who needs one of those? Noct!” He remembered Noctis’s anger in the bathroom by the side of the road in Niflheim, and felt pleased imagining Noctis’s reaction to finally getting his hair fixed.

“I can do them,” Luna said, smiling at Prompto’s enthusiasm. “I’ve been doing mine and Aranea’s for quite a while now. I’ll come up with some ideas and see if we can get some hair dye and makeup as well.”

Prompto frowned. “Wait, is that the extent of our big plan to avoid getting caught?” he asked. “We take two cars and disguise ourselves a little?”

“I certainly hope not,” Ignis muttered.

“Don’t worry, Specs, it’s not,” Aranea said. “Luna and I and some other members of the Resistance have worked out a special map of Tenebrae that shows where it’s safe for us to drive, with obstacles and allies marked along the way. We’ll be using that map to figure out what route to take and where to sleep at night.”

“With luck, we won’t see hide nor hair of an Empire soldier - at least not one we can’t bribe. But let’s go over what to do in case of various emergencies just in case, shall we?” Luna said brightly.

Prompto sighed, but he was happy to learn the safety procedures that Luna and Aranea had practised when travelling within Tenebrae and Accordo in the past. Aranea also encouraged Prompto and Ignis to do some combat practice with her and Luna the next day, just to make sure they could work together as a team. That, Prompto was happy to agree to as well. He still feared the risk of capture by the Empire. But at least the four of them would be prepared for anything that could come - and no matter what, Prompto would keep Noctis safe.

 

\--

 

DAY 3

The morning of the third day, Noctis woke seeming perturbed. When Prompto asked him what was wrong, he explained that he had had another dream. At first, Prompto thought he meant another dream with Bahamut. But no. Instead, he had dreamed he was back in the same dreamworld he had been trapped in when he was in the coma. Prompto was about ready to panic over that one, but Noctis explained how he’d always been able to go there, ever since he was a kid, and it was only when he was put into the coma that he had become trapped there. No wonder he seemed so shaken.

Prompto also found out that Noctis had a dream guide called Carbuncle, who was some kind of magic blue fox. 

“It was nice to see him again, I guess,” Noctis said to Prompto, who was sitting on his bed with him. “He was really happy for me, for finally waking up. He asked about you, actually.” Noctis laughed, a little embarrassed. 

“I thought you said he was a fox,” Prompto said, confused. “But he talks?”

“He sends texts,” Noctis said. Prompto’s eyebrows shot up, and Noctis smirked. “No, I’m serious. In my dream I have a phone, and Carbuncle texts me. He uses a bunch of emoji. Actually, I got all the stuff you said on my phone too.”

“Seriously?” Prompto said. Before now, it had never occurred to him that Noctis hadn’t just been hearing his words aloud. “So you didn’t know what my voice sounded like?”

“Nope. And sometimes my phone converted stuff you said into emoji. Like, smiley faces and stuff? I think it was interpreting your mood,” Noctis said, frowning. “Sometimes it’d send a totally random one, like a chocobo or a garbage can.”

“A garbage can?” Prompto laughed, wondering what he possibly could have said to get that one to appear. Hopefully it hadn’t been something about himself. “So, did you answer me through texting?” he asked.

“Yeah, but you didn’t always get it,” Noctis said, leaning back into his pillows a little. “I had to use simple words and focus and concentrate when I wrote them. Sometimes it was like you didn’t hear me at all. But you usually at least noticed when I said your name. Prompto Argentum.”

Prompto smiled, a little touched that Noctis had been one of the first people to start using his new name, and he hadn’t even known it. He wondered what weird times it had come up in conversation before, and wished that it were possible to see Noctis’s dream phone text logs.

The supply boat arrived mid-afternoon, to Prompto’s delight. He felt a little awkward wearing Luna’s clothing (that day it had been the white skirt and blue button-down), not because it didn’t suit him, but because he was constantly afraid of getting sauce on it or ripping off the hem in a door or something and ruining it, then subsequently having to buy the Oracle of Tenebrae new clothing with what little cash he had left from his and Besithia’s wallets. 

He was also exceedingly pleased to have a new phone, and so was Noctis when he woke up and found out that he had enough data to play King’s Knight. As for Prompto, the first thing he did when he got his new phone was look up news articles about himself to see what the fallout from their escape from Zegnautus Keep was - and how much trouble he was in.

As expected, Besithia’s death had been officially announced, and Prompto had an absolutely massive bounty on his head. Besithia had been succeeded by Prompto’s brother Helixion. Unfortunately, because they were all clones, Helixion had had to dye his hair black specifically to keep from being mistaken for Prompto in public or even arrested. Prompto could only imagine the security check that his brothers were going through at Zegnautus Keep - first, proving that they weren’t defective traitors like Prompto, and second, making sure that they really were themselves and not Prompto stealing their identity. Prompto found the thought of this hilarious. He hoped they were all suffering. Loqi, his least unfavourite brother, looked slightly different to the rest of them because he was a recombinant clone, so Prompto had nothing to feel bad about. 

What was also hilarious was the press’s attempts to pretend like anyone had the faintest clue where Prompto had gone after leaving the Penumbra General Hospital. Plus, the news outlets all said that Prompto had last been seen in the company of a very important prisoner - but since Noctis was supposed to be dead, they couldn’t come right out and say that it was him, only that he was 5’9”, had black hair and blue eyes, had a bunch of different scars that they couldn’t be too specific about, and was armed and dangerous. 

Maybe Prompto should have been more afraid of getting caught, but he felt pretty safe in the company of Noctis, Luna, Aranea, and Ignis, all formidable warriors, and with the gods on their sides. He just felt so distant and removed from Zegnautus Keep, so far away from the hell he’d left behind. And he wanted to keep it that way. 

The other interesting thing Prompto found as he switched to researching his hospital escape, was that the director of the Penumbra General Hospital had been held for questioning by Niflheim officials, but then released. 

As soon as he read that, he immediately went downstairs and found Ignis, Luna, and Aranea in the living room. Ignis and Luna were reading, and Aranea had a trash can on the floor in front of her as she carved something out of wood with a very sharp pocketknife that flashed in the light.

“Ignis, did you see this article?” Prompto said, holding up his phone for Ignis to see. Setting his book down on the small table beside him, Ignis turned to Prompto with the air of one vaguely disturbed, and peered at the screen. 

“No, I have not. It appears to be about your miraculous disappearance from Penumbra. I take it there is something I should know about it?” Ignis said, looking up at Prompto. 

“The hospital director… Cadea Shivani, right? She’s alive,” Prompto said eagerly. He knew that Ignis had been worried about her. Luna looked up from her book, and though Aranea’s hands continued to move steadily, she seemed to also be paying attention. 

“How do you know?” Ignis said, taking the phone from Prompto and scrolling through the article. “I should think that any news source endorsed by the Empire is highly unreliable.”

“Well, it says she was released right here,” Prompto said, pointing helpfully. “And, I know for a fact that the Gralean Telegraph is reliable. They hide the truth the government doesn’t want you to know just like everybody else, but if they say that something happened, it happened.” He knew this for a fact, because the Gralean Telegraph had accurately reported not only his illness and demotion, but had also a few of his brothers’ scandals back in the day. This was the only news source Prompto had ever bothered trusting aside from the gossip he heard from the scientists and politicians in Zegnautus Keep.

“The Gralean Telegraph?” Luna said, setting the book down in her lap. “I generally prefer them above other news sources, but I did ask one of our agents to get me a report on the situation at Penumbra. So even if it’s reported wrong for some reason, we should know soon.”

“It won’t be wrong,” Prompto said, shrugging. 

Luna smiled. “I don’t think it will be. I certainly hope it isn’t, at any rate.” 

“Thank you for informing me,” Ignis said, handing his phone back to Prompto. “I have been exceedingly concerned for her. She does good work… and she is a dear friend.”

“No problem,” Prompto replied. “I hope that nothing happens to her.” And it was true. Even though she had tried to kill him, it had just been a misunderstanding. And ultimately, she had put herself in danger so the three of them could escape.

Ignis thanked him again, then picked his book back up, as Luna picked up hers. Prompto felt a little awkward. Just as he was standing there wondering if he should go back upstairs, Aranea caught his eye. She patted the sofa cushion next to her. 

Well… Noctis would most likely be asleep for another hour, and if he woke up early, he could always text Prompto now that they both had phones. So instead, Prompto went ahead and sat down on the sofa beside Aranea, who gave him a wink as she continued her carving. It seemed to be a tiny replica of herself in her family’s famous dragon armour. 

“I’m building a diorama,” Aranea said, seeing Prompto’s confused look. “Started as a serious strategy thing, and then… just kinda got out of hand. Next I’m gonna carve an airship.”

When Prompto laughed, she said, “Don’t judge. We’ve been stuck here for months.”

Prompto laughed again, but she grinned back, seeming none too offended. After that, Prompto went back to reading news articles, and giving Aranea the most interesting and amusing details he found in the process.

 

\--

 

DAY 4

The next morning was the morning Prompto caught Noctis trying to lift the lamp and got him the kitchen weights. That was also the occasion when Noctis explained to him that as a child, he had been attacked by a demon, an attack which had resulted in him needing to use a wheelchair and visit Tenebrae to be healed by the Oracle. As he said this, he glanced at his wheelchairs - he had two now, since they’d gotten a new one for him that was more comfortable and fit him better than the one that they had stolen from Penumbra General Hospital - and gave them a look of disgust. 

“That was shit,” Noctis said after a moment. “People would literally push me around without me asking them too, like I was furniture. And I could never go anywhere fast enough because my arms got tired.”

“Oh, man…” Prompto said, not knowing what else to say. “Noct, I’m sorry, dude. Did I… I never… did I ever…?”

“Nah,” Noctis said, shaking his head firmly. “You never made me feel like that, Prompto.”

Prompto internally sighed with relief. He did wonder, sometimes when he was drawing Noctis’s covers up over his body as he slept, or hoisting Noctis up under the arms so he could get in the wheelchair just to go down the hall and into the bathroom, if he was overstepping boundaries of some kind. But Noctis never said anything, even if he did scowl through most of it.

That was also the morning when Prompto found himself glancing at Noctis’s hands too often, and wondered why he wanted to hold them again so badly. Was it just the magic of having Noctis wake up and suddenly be his friend, talking and laughing with him and teasing him about stories Prompto had told him years ago but hadn’t expected him to remember? Was it just that Prompto wanted to reassure himself that he was here, and safe, and that he still had time left in spite of his health? 

Or was it something more than that? Prompto had always found Noctis handsome, just in a pitying sort of way, like “Oh wow, he’s so attractive, imagine how good his life could be if he weren’t lying in a coma in this hospital bed.” Seeing Noctis smile at him and speak, his whole face coming alive, was something else entirely - Prompto might even call him beautiful, and he didn’t know if that was okay. With either of them.

When he did tentatively take Noctis’s hand as Noctis was drifting off to sleep, Noctis only smiled slightly and curled his fingers around Prompto’s. 

That day, Prompto actually did fall asleep beside Noctis by accident. When he woke up, Noctis was still asleep, and there was shouting and the sound of clashing metal coming from outside. Prompto bolted upright, letting Noctis’s fingers slip from his grasp. Shit. Grabbing the Magnum from the drawer of the bedside table, Prompto approached the window, pressing himself against the wall beside it, then threw a cautious glance outside. 

And sagged against the wall in relief when he saw that Aranea and Luna were sparring each other on the eternally foggy lawn, for practice or for fun. Ignis was nowhere in sight. 

Sighing, Prompto closing his eyes. After the initial fear wore off, he turned back to the window to see how the fight was going. Luna was wielding a trident, while Aranea had her lance. Both of them were wearing some light leather practice armour. Prompto wasn’t close enough to judge their expressions, but the way their bodies moved and whirled showed a determined, fierce energy. And the way they parried each other’s thrusts showed a long familiarity, so that their fight was more a kind of a dance. 

Prompto admired them, Luna and Aranea - and Ignis, too. He hadn’t been spending as much time with them as maybe he should have been. He wanted to be close to Noctis - even when he was asleep. He felt bad for being so anti-social. Normally he would have jumped at the chance to make friends. But with his health like it was… there was no point, not in wasting his precious time with Noctis, nor in wasting theirs. Last night he had woken up at 3am with stomach cramps, and not fallen back asleep until 4. He was trying so hard not to be scared every time his body presented him with a new or unusual symptom, but it was difficult. And lonely.

Glancing back at Noctis, Prompto saw that he was still asleep. Should he stay here for longer, or go downstairs and join the fight to get some more combat practice himself? Or at least sit in the same room as Ignis and waste some time on the internet again? 

Outside on the lawn, Aranea finally managed to break through Luna’s defences and touch her spear point to Luna’s shoulder. 

“Touché,” Luna laughed breathlessly, but Prompto didn’t hear her.

That evening, Luna came into their room to give Noctis the hair cut that she had promised him. She had already done her own hair and Aranea’s, dying her own brown and giving Aranea a pixie cut. Ignis’s, she had bleached a few shades lighter, and rather than cut it had told him to stop styling his hair in that distinctively trendy leaf-fan shape and just wear it loose. Prompto thought that all three of them looked good, and was intrigued to see what she would do with him and with Noctis.

“A hair cut?” Noctis said when they told him, his eyes flashing with interest. “It’s about time.”

They wheeled him into the bathroom, and Luna set about making Noctis’s hair a uniform length again. They would have dyed it, but agreed that the sitting up and staying awake required for that would not be good for Noctis’s health. Instead, Luna cut away the long, uneven hanks of hair around Noctis’s face and gave him a slightly long, shaggy style that hid his face a little, but not as much as it had before. It was a balance between the short, pragmatic cut Noctis had worn during the war, and the long, unstyled look he’d gained while in Zegnautus Keep. When Luna held up the mirror for him at the end, Noctis studied his reflection for several long minutes. 

Finally, he smiled. “It looks good. Thanks,” he said. 

“You’re welcome, Noctis,” Luna said. 

And Noctis did look good. Unlike the day he had awoken, his cheeks had regained a small pink blush and his eyes didn’t look so sunken-in anymore. To his surprise, Prompto felt tears rising to his eyes as he looked at Noctis reflected in the mirror.

“We did it, Noct,” Prompto said, coughing and blinking to hide his emotions. “We really escaped from Zegnautus Keep. And you look really good,” he couldn’t help but add. 

“Oh, I know,” Noctis said, and smirked. Prompto laughed, and ruffled Noctis’s new hair cut affectionately. 

The next day, Luna helped Prompto dye his hair a boring brown colour and give it a boring generic cut, which he wasn’t very excited about. When Noctis saw it, he just shrugged. 

“You’d probably look fine in anything, Prompto,” he said. “Don’t worry about it too much.” That went against pretty much every rule Prompto had regarding his own appearance - but since it was Noctis saying it, he accepted the compliment nonetheless. 

The rest of the time leading up to their departure was spent checking and re-checking their suitcases, practicing sparring, memorising the map, and going over emergency protocols. When he could, Prompto escaped to sit quietly with Noctis. Time with him was precious, and he was lucky they could be together, if only for a little while.

 

\--

DAY 7

The night before they were due to leave, Prompto was getting ready for bed with the lights down low and Noctis sleeping beside him. Although he didn’t want to be, he was more nervous than excited about leaving the island and going to Lucis tomorrow. It was a dangerous journey, but also, Prompto didn’t know if his body could handle it. Although his heartburn had been manageable so far, who knew what several days of being in a car would do to him? He was very susceptible to car-sickness unless he was driving or sitting in the front seat.

As he was thinking this and getting into bed, he heard Noctis rustling the covers a little more than he usually did when he was asleep. To Prompto’s surprise, Noctis spoke. 

“Prompto?” he said. 

“Yeah?” Prompto replied, sitting up and wondering if he should turn the light back on. “Everything good?”

“Yeah,” Noctis said. He was silent for a moment, and Prompto wondered if he was falling back asleep. The atmosphere in the room didn’t feel like that, though. It felt like Noctis had something on his mind. 

“Hey… I, uh… I wanted to tell you something,” Noctis said. The tone in which he said this made Prompto’s breath catch in his throat and his body go cold. _Shit._ It was gonna be something bad. Maybe Noctis had injured himself, or he was mad at Prompto, or no - _he was going to tell Prompto he wasn’t well enough to go to Lucis tomorrow._

Prompto tried to be calm, telling himself that they’d get through this somehow. Defying a god couldn’t be any harder than killing his father and escaping from Zegnautus Keep, could it?

“Yeah?” Prompto said tentatively. 

“Uh… it’s about when I was in the coma,” Noctis said. 

“Oh?” Prompto said, surprised. Still sitting up, he leaned forward, hugging his knees to his chest. 

“Yeah,” Noctis said, sounding ill-at-ease. “I guess… I just wanted to thank you. For taking care of me, like you did. For talking to me. It really helped me stop myself from going crazy with only Carbuncle around all the time.”

What Noctis had said did not sit right with Prompto, but he couldn’t really explain why. In spite of the fact that Noctis couldn’t see him, he shook his head and then looked down at his arms wrapped around the mound of covers pulled over his knees. “You don’t have to thank me, dude,” he said. “It was just… the right thing to do.”

“No, I don’t think you get it,” Noctis said confidently. “All those things you said to me… it was like the outside world still mattered. When you talked about cutting my hair so I would look good, when I couldn’t even see myself. Before you said that, I was just wandering around exploring stuff and not doing anything. You made me feel like it would be worth it for me to wake up. Like I could have a future.” 

Prompto put his head down on his knees, feeling depressed. A future. Yeah. 

“So then, I actually started trying to solve those dumb disk puzzles to get to the exit,” Noctis continued. “If it wasn’t for you, I would’ve kept dreaming until… until I died, I guess.” His voice went low and quiet. “You saved my life.”

Prompto took a deep breath. Thank the gods. If there was one thing he’d done with his miserable, pathetic life that mattered, at least he had saved Noct. He should be feeling happy and grateful, but instead all he could think about was how he had apparently promised Noctis a future, but he wouldn’t be able to go there with him. 

Still… if there was no time, he wanted Noctis to know. How meeting Noctis was the best thing that had ever happened to him. 

“Noct,” he said, his voice muffled because his face was still pushed into his knees. As he spoke, he slowly lifted his head. “There’s something that I want to tell you, too.”

Noctis said nothing, just waited quietly. In the dark, Prompto could hear him breathing. It was comforting. 

“You taking the time to answer my random-ass shit, it meant the world to me,” Prompto said. He thought back on days when he’d been cold and trembling, another of Besithia’s experiments gone awry. Days when he’d taken a photo he was so proud of and then felt small when he knew no one would ever see it. Going into Noctis’s room and holding up the camera as if he could actually see the tiny image on the lit up screen asleep and with his eyes closed. But the lines on the monitor had showed that Noctis was listening. “I never, I never had a friend. Not a real one. Not once in my whole life. Nobody like you.” Prompto swallowed, his throat feeling thick. “So if you think that you were a burden to me, or that I regret anything about meeting you, you’re wrong. Because you are the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Yeah… uh… me too,” Noctis said, with that same quiet intensity. Prompto closed his eyes, feeling tears spring to them unexpectedly. He was so tired. It sounded like Noctis was saying goodbye to him, but he knew it was just his imagination. 

“Thanks, Noct,” he whispered. 

There was a pregnant pause. 

“Are you okay?” Noctis said abruptly. “You sound… You know you can tell me anything, right?”

He almost told him, then. Almost spat out the words that had burned his mouth and choked up his throat on the day he had left Zegnautus Keep for good. But it was too much. It was too much.

“I’m fine,” Prompto lied, biting his lip hard. With only a little hitch in his voice, he said, “I’ve always told you everything, right?” He hated himself as he said it, but it wasn’t even a lie. 

“Okay, good,” Noctis said, sounding relieved. “I just, I really… I care about you a lot.”

Prompto bit his lip so hard it broke and he could taste it bleeding. “Me too. Good night, Noct.”

He knew he was ending the conversation abruptly, but it was either that or lose all of his control. He wondered if he was detecting some surprise from the black space beside him where Noctis lay, just out of reach if Prompto lifted his hand and tried to touch the other bed. He ignored it, turned away from Noctis, lay down, and pulled the covers over his head. His chest felt tight with emotion, and his stomach burned with sickness, so he couldn’t even pretend to be okay. Instead, shoved the side of his fist into his mouth and bit down hard, his whole body shuddering silently until he finally surrendered to his exhaustion and darkness, and slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The list of dead people Luna provided is a canonical list of all the dog tags you retrieve for Dave Aubunbrie. 
> 
> To be clear about the cross-dressing in this chapter: I like to imagine that Lucis is a magical land where clothing isn't gendered and people can wear whatever they want according to preference. That and, Luna's wardrobe isn't that big. Hence, Prompto and Noctis in skirts. I once wrote a meta post about [the skirts all four chocobros would wear if my gender-neutral clothing headcanons were true](https://a-still-small-vox.tumblr.com/post/173752899346/chocobro-skirt-headcanons).
> 
> Things are going to get shaken up a bit in the next chapter, of course.
> 
> Comments always welcome!


End file.
